Let’s start with this:
If the Yankees open the second half of the season with a victory against Tampa Friday night at Yankee Stadium, Aaron Boone’s lifetime record as a manager will be 318-212. If that happens, Boone’s lifetime winning percentage will edge up a tick, from .599 to .600.
In the history of baseball, that would make Boone only the 10th manager to have won 60 percent of his games. And if you remove two managers who never skippered a game post-1900, and five others who won the entirety of their games in the Negro Leagues, that reduces the number to three:
Dave Roberts (.618).
Joe McCarthy (.615).
And Boone, who will sit at an even .600 if the Yankees win Friday. Here is a partial list of managers who did not win 60 percent of their games: John McGraw, Earl Weaver, Walter Alston, Bobby Cox, Miller Huggins, Sparky Anderson, Leo Durocher, Joe Torre, Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Tommy Lasorda, Dick Williams and Casey Stengel, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame. Also Dusty Baker, Terry Francona and Bruce Bochy, who will be, and Buck Showalter and Billy Martin, who should be.
Point?
Sometimes, if you listen to enough chatter around town, you might suspect Boone was working somewhere under the Mendoza Line (Mario, not Carlos), and that whatever victories he’s amassed have either come as the result of a lottery or simply staying out of the way and letting all the talent do the job for him.
(That latter argument is curious because many who think Boone ought to walk a gangplank think he should do so Butch-and-Sundance style with Brian Cashman, a belt tying their hands together as they leap. And if the general manager is doing a lousy job acquiring good players … doesn’t that speak well of the field manager?)
Here’s something else to remember, though: of those names listed above, only McGraw, Weaver, Alston and Lasorda never got fired. Good managers are fired. Great managers are fired, often multiple times.
So Boone isn’t invulnerable. He shouldn’t be invulnerable. And if you’re looking at this clearly, he hasn’t earned a pink slip yet, even if the Yankees haven’t qualified for a World Series yet. I believe this 100 percent.
I also believe this 100 percent:
If the Yankees don’t get on a horse and win the AL East — or, barring that, make a spirted run to the ALCS — then the sand in Boone’s hourglass should officially be done. Maybe that’s not fair, though if the worst-case scenario happens it’ll be hard to find a lot of Yankees fans to stand on that side of the debate.
But these next 64 games are a unique challenge for Boone, and for precisely the reason he keeps giving for what you might on one hand call his eternal optimism and on the other his dogged delusion.
All together now:
“It’s all right there in front of us.”
Some managers and coaches will forever be known for their pet phrases. For Tom Thibodeau it’s “the game tells you what to do.” For Buck Showalter it was “nobody feels sorry for you; they want you to have problems.” Rich Kotite’s old standby was “we played haaaard.” Bill Parcells’ was “no medals for trying.”
Boone, on an endless loop, goes with, “It’s all right there in front of us.” And the thing is: he’s exactly right. It feels like the Yankees have been sliding off a cliff for a month and yet you look at the standings and they are 17 games over .500 and two games behind the Orioles in the loss column.
He uses another one a lot: “We have the guys in that room to get it done.” And he should. The Yankees aren’t quite the team who was playing .700 ball across their first 70 games, and they’re not quite the team that’s been .321 for their last 28 — but they ought to be closer to the former than the latter. And that’s without what you expect will be a fertile trading season for them.
Now Boone has to back up his own words. And even if you walk into this argument as a strong Boone defender, the ominous history of the last two seasons is a legit concern. Because it has to be different this time around.
By Oct. 1, if we’re pining about how much better the Yankees were before the break than after, it’ll be a brief — or nonexistent — postseason. And there will almost certainly be a “vacancy” sign outside the manager’s office.
For cause.