When it came to determining who would become Joe Girardi’s successor as skipper in The Bronx, Yankees’ general manager Brian Cashman and owner Hal Steinbrenner arranged a list of six names.
On Friday afternoon, five of those names were crossed off.
The last one remaining: Aaron Boone.
The ESPN baseball analyst, who also etched his name into Yankee lore with an extra-inning walkoff home run against the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, will be named the franchise’s next manager, according to Bill Madden of the New York Daily News. The report also noted that both Boone and San Francisco Giants’ bench coach Hensley Meulens were the two favorites to land the job. But in the end, Cashman recommended the 44-year-old Boone to Steinbrenner, per Madden.
“I feel like I am the guy who can help these guys go into another level as players,” Boone told reporters in a teleconference following his interview at Yankee Stadium back on Nov. 17. “I find myself managing games all the time and thinking about strategies and how I would handle different situations. It’s fair to question my experience in actually doing the job, but I would say in a way I’ve been preparing for this job for the last 44 years.”
The latter four interviewees — Rob Thomson, Carlos Beltran, Eric Wedge, and Chris Woodward — were informed on Friday that they weren’t getting the job. As this transpired, MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki reported that Thomson is expected to join the Philadelphia Phillies staff as their bench coach.
Further details on this story will be provided once more information is revealed.
