Neither man managed an MLB club until they got their first gigs in the Big Apple. Both have managed 264 games. They are in the same town at the same time with all there is to love and loathe in NYC. Both were also big-league players.
Yet the prevailing perceptions of Mickey Callaway and Aaron Boone could not be more contrasting. The Mets manager is often derided as a tongue-tied, strategy-deprived pitching coach from Ohio who got devoured by the pressure of performing in Gotham. Meanwhile, Boone is seen as a modest, if not masterful, juggler of players and personalities.
Both have managed 264 games. Aaron Boone is 166-98, winning 62.9% of his games. Calloway is 124-140 as skipper of the Mets, winning 47% of his games. So clearly Callaway is half the manager of his crosstown counterpart.
Or is that fair? Before this season began, The Big Lead ranked all 30 MLB managers, and Boone finished 14th, labeled "perfectly average." The Boston Globe had Boone ranked No. 11, as did Yardbarker. Most folks shared the sense that Boone's most useful ability was to form bedrock friendships with the young stars on the squad, with little attention paid to in-game mastery. So clearly the manager of the World-Series favorites is not universally seen as the reason the Yankees are so good.
Boone was hired for two obvious reasons; He did well in his interview, and he's not Joe Girardi. He will remain a manager for a while because the Yankees are prospering despite the army of injured players hobbling on and off the diamond.
But it's become evident that managers don't have the same heft as they once did. If Girardi was branded G.I. Joe for his stern stance and moody mien with the media, forever glued to the binder between his bulging forearms, then Boone is the kinder, gentler skipper, who never sweats or swears at the press or at his own players. Boone has his low-key, Midwestern charm, no discernible accent, and no demands.
Still, we hear more and more about the manager-marionette, with the GM pulling the strings and the players, feeding each day's lineup to the obsequious skipper who agreed to this in order to get the job. If Callaway has been publicly gelded by his boss Brodie Van Wagenen, then what is Boone's influence on The Bronx Bombers?
Does Boone scratch-out his own lineup? Does he call players up or down? Does he discipline his own guys? Boone will likely get copious votes for Manager of the Year for leading this baseball triage to the playoffs. But is he merely the mouthpiece for GM Brian Cashman? Or is Boone a quiet magician who keeps his wand hidden in the clubhouse?
The MLB manager has been marginalized into an appendage of the greater corporate body, not as the hardened general leading troops into battle 162 times a year. We used to have Billy Martin and Earl Weaver and Lou Piniella, fire-breathing Alpha males who charged the umpire like a linebacker, kicking up dust and belching vulgarities until they were booted from the game. For all their flaws, no one doubted who was in charge.
The dynamic has shifted, to be sure. No more chairs are being hurled around a clubhouse. There are no more expletive-laden pressers that have to be bleeped out every two seconds. But Boone has flashed his fangs on occasion. He got tossed from a recent game for dropping some F-Bombs on the home plate umpire whose strike zone was a bit too malleable for Boone's liking.
Boone clearly knows baseball. He comes from a baseball family, if not a kingdom, going back to grandfather Ray Boone's rookie season in 1948. So it's not imperative that Boone wasn't a manager for a competing club before he migrated to The Bronx. He already knows the physical and cultural landscape, having hit perhaps the most celebrated home run in Yankees history, in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS.
In the NFL, the head coach crafts the character of the team. In basketball, the coach is more visible, pacing up and down the sideline in his tailored suit, barking the next play at his point guard. The MLB manager is way more stoic, if not silent. Joe Torre brooded under the bill of his cap for a dozen years, and no one questions his success in pinstripes. Casey Stengel used to sling pretzeled sermons, leaving the media and masses scrambling for the meaning of his words.
When he finally won a national championship, John Calipari said he was no better at coaching than he was a day before. Wins and losses are a distorted metric of a manager's influence, but it's pretty much all we have in print. Perhaps that explains why Alex Cora, with an almost identical record to Boone's, is ranked much higher. The Red Sox won a World Series under Cora, while Boone is still clawing for his first ring.
Aaron Boone is just a good guy having a great year with the Yankees. Is he the reason for it? Is he a reason for it? Since he would be fired had the team tanked, he should at least get credit for leading this locomotive into October. We just don't know how much to give.
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