TAMPA, Fla. (WFAN) -- The day Aaron Boone was hired by the Yankees in December, he was asked what he wanted in a bench coach, given that Boone himself had never actually managed. Boone shot down the notion that he needed an experienced former manager in the role.
"I want smart sitting next to me," Boone said. "I want confidence sitting next to me."
Meet Josh Bard -- 39 years old; born in Ithaca, New York; raised in Colorado; played 10 big league seasons as a catcher with Cleveland, Boston, San Diego, Washington and Seattle. Before joining the Yankees, Bard spent the last five years with the Los Angeles Dodgers -- as a pro scout, then special assistant to the general manager and the last two years as bullpen coach.
As Boone described what he wanted in his bench coach, he already had Bard in mind. The two became friends when they played together in Cleveland in 2005. They remained close over the years, and when Boone worked Dodgers games as a broadcaster, he would often seek out Bard -- who was steeped in analytics --and pick his brain.
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"I admired him," Bard said of Boone, "because I think that job's easy to eat at Morton's and play golf, and you could see that he was really trying to grow and continue to learn the game. I think we both have that mentality of being learners. We want to be good at this thing."
After interviewing for the managerial opening, Boone reached out to Bard in the event that he landed the job and asked his former teammate to be his bench coach.
"I was flattered, and it was a no-brainer for me," Bard said. "It was hard to leave LA, but to work with a quality guy like him, it's been fun."
Bard watched Boone's introductory news conference. He wasn't on board yet, but knew he soon would be.
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"I don't know if I would consider myself smart," Bard said without even a chuckle. "I would consider myself a learner and ultra-prepared because I had to be (as a backup catcher), but I also take it as a challenge to continue to grow and learn."
"I just know what kind of talented baseball mind he is," Boone said when asked why he chose Bard. "He understands all the new age analytical stuff. He's great at the game-planning stuff. He's very confident in the way he communicates. He was the first guy that I wanted to interview ... and when you see him in that setting kind of knock it out of the park, it became an easy decision not only for me, but I think for the Yankees to sign off on and say this is a guy we want in the mix."
TRUST MATTERS
I asked Bard very simply what his job is as Boone's bench coach, and he said it's "to encourage him, to serve him, to put him in the best possible place to succeed," but quickly pointed out that it's a collaborative process that he relishes.
While with the Dodgers, Bard was part of a group that is considered near the top of the game in their development and use of analytics. Bard heaped praise on the Yankees in that regard and said another part of his job is to be a translator for all that information, just part of the process between coaches and players.
"If we think information can help a player play better, we want to give him that information," Bard said, while understanding the need to tailor it for each player. "There's only so much real estate inside a player's brain. We don't want to add more thoughts, we want to add the right thoughts."
One of the early goals of the new staff is to gain the trust of the players. Bard knows it will take time, but said that Boone and the rest of the staff have the right mindset to make it happen.
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"Major league players look at coaches in a unique way," Bard explained. "They say, 'Can this guy help me or can't he?' And once you've earned that (trust), they're all in because guys want to play well and they want to win games. It's not rocket science. But I think it's just being genuine, it's being prepared, and it's considering others before yourself."
Many times Bard talked about serving others and considering others, lessons he said he learned from his parents, Ron and Gail Bard, who still live in Colorado. Ron had many scholarly pursuits, earning six different degrees ("smart" runs in the family) before becoming a counselor through the Denver Seminary.
Bard doesn't recall what all his father's degrees are in, but the lessons taught by both parents are what remain important to him.
"I would say they would have complete conviction that serving other people and helping other people was much more gratifying than just putting a piece of paper up on the wall," Bard said.
TRYING TIMES
Confidence certainly is strong in Bard. And confidence is only true confidence if it comes with humility, which Bard got a large dose of when he played for Boston 12 years ago.
Traded from the Indians to the Red Sox in a six-player deal in January 2006, Bard became Jason Varitek's backup and thereby also became Tim Wakefield's personal catcher, since Wakefield's previous caddy, Doug Mirabelli, had been traded to San Diego one month earlier.
When former Yankee John Flaherty, a nonroster invitee with the Red Sox, retired during spring training in part because of the trouble he had with Wakefield's knuckleball, the job was all Bard's.
"Not fun," Bard said, able to break a bit of a smile now. "People will go, 'Hey, you caught Wakefield!' and I'll go, 'No, I really chased him more than I caught him.'"
"What I remember most about him is his work ethic," Wakefield said of Bard. "He worked as hard as he could to try to figure out how to catch me. From the day I got to spring training, we played catch every single day. ... He left his catchers' drills just to come down and play catch with me."
But Bard struggled, tallying 10 passed balls in Wakefield's first five starts, including four in a 7-1 loss in Cleveland on April 26. Wakefield started the year 1-4, and before his next start -- May 1 against the Yankees at Fenway Park -- Bard was traded to San Diego in return for Mirabelli.
"This is big-boy baseball," Bard said. "And when it's not good enough, you're going to get the tap on the shoulder, and that's part of it."
Adding insult to injury, Bard had to take a six-hour flight to the West Coast to meet his new team, and while in line at the airport for his flight, Bard overheard two Red Sox fans just in front of him.
"So these guys are throwing me under the bus, talking in line and I'm right behind them.," he said. "And in my heart, I'm going, 'You know what? They're right.'"
Meanwhile, at the same moment, Mirabelli was getting a police escort from Logan Airport to Fenway Park, whisked into the ballpark just minutes before first pitch. He helped Wakefield and the Red Sox beat the Yankees 7-3.
"I will never regret that situation," Bard said. "It was a little bit hard because my wife was 8 1/2 months pregnant and we had to move across the country. But at the end of the day, it was a great learning experience.
"It was a challenge, and I'm forever grateful for that. Some people might say this is cheesy, but I really believe there's no such thing as failure; there's just feedback. I learned a lot about myself. I learned that careful never works. I learned there's never a time on the baseball field where I'll feel more embarrassed than that, so from there on, I think I got less careful as a player."
Said Wakefield: "I think getting away from the situation that he was in with me, maybe he could relax."
As it turned out, Bard had the best years of his career in San Diego in 2006 and 2007. It was there where he played for Bud Black, who Bard credits as being one of his major influences in the game, along with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.
And going through that experience in Boston is something Bard believes makes him a better coach.
"It makes you more empathetic to the players," Bard said. "It makes you never forget how hard this game is to play."
SOMEONE SPECIAL
Bard shares the optimism most others have about the Yankees in 2018. While praising the manager, coaching staff, front office, analytics department and, of course, the players, Bard drives home the point that this unit is "special."
Actually, he elongates the pronunciation for emphasis ("SPESH-ulllllll"), adding that "it's one of the most special rooms I've ever seen."
For Boone, it is Bard who is one of the special pieces here.
"I think he has a really good grasp on the analytics in today's game and how to implement them," the Yankees manager said. "But also, as we always say, the blend -- the blend of the scouting and development side, the eye test, the gut, the feel ... all those things matter in putting together what I hope is a great puzzle."
Bard also believes there will be plenty of old-school managing going on, not just data-driven maneuvers.
"Boonie will hear me tell him a thousand times this year to trust his gut, but it's easier to trust your gut when you feel prepared going into it," Bard said. "I know that Boonie trusts me, and I trust him."
Boone's trust in Bard isn't just because he supplies the smarts and confidence he described back in December.
"When I said that, yes, he was in mind, but that was for anyone," Boone said. "Experience is a factor. Experience matters. And I feel like for actually being a young man in this game (Bard turns 40 later this month), he does have a lot of experience now. But I want a guy that in my opinion is really good at this ... and I believe I got him."
