First came Bucky F’n Dent, then came Aaron F’n Boone – and 18 years after the biggest home run of Boone’s career, will one of the players on his team have a similar moment in the AL Wild Card Game that puts the dagger in the hearts of Red Sox fans?
“Maybe someone else will have a moment, hopefully, for the ‘stripers,” Boone said hours before the one-game playoff.
Perhaps it will be Anthony Rizzo or Joey Gallo, who, like Boone in 2003, came over at the trade deadline and got a glimpse of the rivalry right away, albeit in a different stadium.
“In 2003, when I came over at the trade deadline, we were two powerhouses, so I got a taste of the rivalry almost right away in August,” Boone said. “My first trip to Fenway, you could see this was another level, and it was pretty cool.”
Boone did have some advice, though, on how having a huge moment like his home run off Tim Wakefield can affect not only that game and season, but life in general.
“You go on to get to the ALCS and have that moment in that game…there’s no question that on a superficial level, it changed things for me a little bit, in how people that I never met before shared that moment with me,” Boone said. “Hundreds have people have stopped me, and now remember me from that. People feel they know you from that, and to the public, it defines you a little bit.”
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Boone has a “strong appreciation for having a moment in such an amazing rivalry,” and he’ll be joined in the park tonight by Dent, whose homer over the Green Monster in 1978 completed an epic Yankees comeback en route to their third straight World Series and second straight championship.
“I haven’t talked to him yet but hopefully we connect, but one of the reasons I know him now is our connection,” Boone said. “We’ve done first pitches together, autograph signings together…we have that bond. That’s been cool for me to get to know him, he’s such a good dude and for me growing up in the game, I knew who he was. That’s a cool connection.”
The only thing left, it seems, is to figure out which current Yankee needs to change their middle name?
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