Aaron Boone couldn’t hide his lack of in-uniform credentials. It was not as if he could tell Yankees officials he had managed three years at Double-A and been a bench coach for two in the majors.
His résumé was his résumé, and the Yankees brought him in for an interview regardless because they were intrigued by what they knew about him, what their research showed and what those who knew him well said about him.
Then, over the course of a few-hour interview last month, Boone surprised his Yankees inquisitors with his grasp of all areas of the game. They knew Boone well enough to expect he would be sincere and confident and poised and well-spoken, but it also became clear Boone had been using his role as an ESPN analyst as something akin to a Ph.D. program in modern baseball.
He was not just being handed game notes and reading them on the air. Instead, he was getting a peek behind the fences of just about every organization, gathering what he liked and didn’t like about how matters were handled by front offices and managers.
It was not riding the buses as a minor league manager or getting an eyeful of a whole season as a major league coach. It was a different kind of education and preparation and — at this moment in baseball history — perhaps a better one. He probably was learning a lot more about the modern game, say, chatting freely with A.J. Hinch or Buck Showalter than he could have derived from, say, managing in the Eastern League.
It certainly allowed him to win the room — allaying concerns with Yankees management about his lack of in-uniform leadership experience to such a degree that he got the managing job on Friday.
Now, for the next room — the Yankees’ clubhouse.
Boone will have to win over that group with a lot less history than he had with those who interviewed him to replace Joe Girardi. He can draw on a lifetime in the game as both the grandson and son of former major leaguers, including a major league manager in his father, Bob.
Of course, no number of relatives in the game or hours mulling what you like and don’t like about each organization fully preps anyone for the scope of a major league manager’s responsibility. Whether Boone can handle this all in more than theory is months away from being known.
Clearly, though, he has been devouring all the intel for more than just broadcast reasons. Managing has been a pull for a while now and captivated his attention more as last season wore on. There was likely a continuing future for him at ESPN, but also legitimate concerns with all the job-cutting the network has been doing.
In addition, there was a sport more open to managers following untraditional routes. Organizations are more and more favoring traits that were in Boone’s tool belt — such as being able to communicate and connect with people, being open to new ideas and having self-confidence to withstand external rebuke.
As a longtime friend of Boone said, “He handles noise well.”
It kind of turned into right guy, right place, right time. Brian Cashman and other important Yankees executives knew and liked Boone already, felt his skill set matched up well with what they wanted in a manager.
Cashman had been stealth in much of the process, but overt any time he spoke publicly that “there are no perfect candidates.” The GM knew no one interviewed was going to check all of the boxes, so this became about checking key ones and then winning the room by showing deficiencies would not define him.
Cashman has told a story over the years that when he was hired as GM in February 1998, at the age of 30 as the second-youngest man at that time ever to hold that title, George Steinbrenner told him The Boss could have found someone older, more experienced or more credentialed for the job. But those Steinbrenner trusted such as Gene Michael championed Cashman and his gut said this was the right way to go.
That always stuck with Cashman, and he has become more and more fearless in his job, particularly over the past five to 10 years. Remember a decade ago that sentiment inside and outside the organization was strong to hire the popular Don Mattingly, but Cashman endorsed Girardi.
If anything, Cashman has become even bolder in his words and actions since once he feels he has arrived at the right decision.
So it is not hard to see what happened here: Boone overcame what was missing on his résumé by winning the room, winning over Cashman.
Now, it is onto the clubhouse to see if Cashman’s gut feeling about Boone was correct and he can win that room, too.