Long before his Yankees lost their season Tuesday night at Fenway Park, Aaron Boone knew a little about sudden-death baseball, and how it can change people’s lives. Boone played only 71 games for the Yankees, including the postseason, yet one fateful October swing made him a part of the franchise’s narrative forevermore.
Do you really think Boone, a broadcaster with no coaching experience, would have been hired as Yankees manager if he’d never beaten the Red Sox with his Game 7 homer in the 2003 ALCS?
“Maybe someone else will have a moment, hopefully for the [pin]stripers,” Boone said before the wild-card game, with a twinkle in his eye.
As it turned out, the Red Sox owned all the meaningful moments in their 6-2 victory, starting with a shocking early knockout of Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, who wasn’t worth the paper his $324 million contract was printed on and who later said he felt, in his words, “sick to my stomach.” Boone made a mistake batting Joey Gallo fourth, and perhaps his mistake inspired third-base coach Phil Nevin to make the disastrous decision to send Aaron Judge home in the sixth.
Boone didn’t pitch a perfect game under win-or-else circumstances. But when he showed no hesitation in pulling Cole with two on in the third inning, no fear of embarrassing his best pitcher, Boone also gave his team its best chance to stay in the game. Clay Holmes rewarded him with a strikeout and a double play.
The Yankees simply couldn’t do anything against Boston’s pitching.
“Guys are crushed,” Boone said of his postgame clubhouse. It was a brutal way to end a maddening season, but Boone should have walked out of Fenway with his job status settled.
The Yankees should bring him back for the same reason they hired him — his temperament. Hal Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman should re-sign Boone to a short-term deal (say two years with a club option for a third) with the big-boy understanding that if a World Series title is not secured in that window, he will be gone.
Boone said he hasn’t had any conversations with his employer about a new contract.
“I love being here,” he said. “I love going to work with this group.”
Asked if he felt being fired would be unfair, Boone said: “We’ll see what happens on that front. But whatever does happen, I’m at peace with, and I know I can hold my head high.”
Yes he can. After going 4-for-4 in postseason appearances in a sport that treats 4-for-4 in anything as a holy-grail achievement, Boone does not deserve to be let go. Though he hasn’t delivered any trips to the World Series, and though three wild-card berths and one division title don’t rise to the Yankees’ standards, his pros still outweigh his cons.
Start with his record. Boone is only the second manager in baseball history to reach the postseason in his first four seasons (Mike Matheny is the other), and his one serious bid to reach the World Series, in 2019, was thwarted by a team (the Astros) that quite possibly cheated to beat his.
Boone has averaged 98 victories in his three 162-game seasons. On the all-time Yankees list, his winning percentage (.601) lands him right behind Joe Torre (.605) and ahead of Miller Huggins (.597), Billy Martin (.591), and Joe Girardi (.562). Girardi actually missed the postseason three times in a four-year span, but kept his job. He later lost that job because Cashman thought there was a disconnect between the tightly wound Girardi and the team’s prominent young players.
The GM went searching for a communicator with a lighter touch, someone who could lower his team’s blood pressure in the ultimate hypertension market. Enter Boone, the likable embodiment of California chill. He won 203 games in his first two seasons, but failed to end what Yankees fans describe as their title “drought.” (They might want to check with Jets and Knicks fans for the true definition of a drought.)
So now, from rooftops all across the city, fans will call for Boone’s head. Steinbrenner should not give it to them.
That the Yankees overcame a series of heartbreaking defeats during the season, and won Sunday’s ultra-stressful game against the ultra-tough Rays in the ninth to qualify for the playoffs, said something about their resilience and their eagerness to play for a manager who never lost his poise in a tumultuous year.
Monday, Boone spoke of a “makeup quality that I think you have to have as a club if you’re going to survive the inevitable grind of the major league season.”
Boone has that makeup, a Joe Torre makeup. Despite what went down at Fenway, he has earned another shot. When you go 4-for-4 in baseball, you deserve a chance to go 5-for-5.