If It Is Good Enough For Conie…
Boonie brings a positive, upbeat attitude with him, and a focused but relaxed style.
Once he was asked at the end of one of his fifth inning interviews if he wanted to throw it to commercial — in homage to his recent work at ESPN. Boone declined in his usual self-effacing but firm way.
Watching him on-camera, it was clear that he was already thinking about his new job while politely declining to do his last one. Before he could get the headset off he was analyzing his charts and information, the interview already a distant and insignificant part of his past.
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We know he puts a strong importance on intelligence and baseball erudition through his hiring of Phil Nevin. David Cone has already waxed on air about Nevin’s qualities and his testimony precludes the need for further evidence.
All told, along with his sly and quiet sense of humor, Boone reminds some of a younger Joe Torre. And his tenure worked out well for the Yankees.
Secrets, Lies, and Whispers
Of course, sitting in the stands back in February, I did not know all of this. All I had was the sight of Boonie walking by in his rumpled, crumpled outfit, slouching along while he joked easily with the sparse group of Yankees fans.
He reminded me then of an old fisherman, home from the sea. This was not how he came across last year in the TV booth. Then he seemed like a too-serious buttoned down baseball analyst, connected to the game by the one big moment of his youth.
Next: Yankees dominant, but thin pitching staff
Now, he seemed like a baseball lifer grown prematurely old and weighted down by his baseball knowledge in a way that invigorated him. He looked connected to the game in the same way that the person who sweeps the stadium for forty years is with the building: Intimately with all its creaking secrets.
Aaron Boone had come home. He was now back in the bosom of the sport he was raised in. And he looked and acted the part.
But although we have gotten some idea of what kind of manager Boone is and will be, the picture is still a bit fuzzy. That’s a problem that will solve itself by the end of October.
And only then will the Yankees know if they like what they see in their new manager, Aaron Boone.