KANSAS CITY — Marcus Stroman was sitting in the blue folding chair in front of his locker in the visitors clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium. The New York Yankees had just beaten the Kansas City Royals 10-1 on Monday night, and Stroman played a major role, tossing 5 2/3 shutout innings. After his teammates finished another raucous postgame ceremony, awarding their Player of the Game championship belt to Austin Wells, who had clubbed a three-run homer, manager Aaron Boone tapped Stroman on the shoulder. He handed him a baseball.
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Except it wasn’t just any baseball. It was dirty. There was handwriting on it. A signature, too.
Game Ball
#48
Another strong
Tone-setter
Six shutty
— Aaron Boone
Stroman read it, grinned and put the ball inside his locker, the inscription facing out. The next day, he snapped a photo of it and posted it to social media.
“Just to get a nod, a vote of confidence from the manager — I think it’s a really cool idea and process,” Stroman said before the Yankees lost, 4-3, to the Royals on Thursday to fall to 49-22 — still the best record in MLB.
It was part of a new Yankees tradition.
After every win this season, Boone has given a game ball to his personal player of the game. It’s never the obvious pick, Boone said. That’s the player who gets the championship belt from his teammates. Instead, Boone usually chooses either that day’s next-best player, or someone who did something crucial that may have flown under the radar yet still aided the win.
“It’s something that I wanted to do to have a little personal touch,” he said.
The idea blossomed in spring training. Boone was talking with Chad Bohling, the Yankees’ senior director of organizational performance and mental skills guru, about another way to build camaraderie in the clubhouse. After all, there were lots of new faces. Over the winter, the Yankees looked to rebound from a terrible fourth-place finish in 2023 by bringing in star slugger Juan Soto. They also added outfielder Alex Verdugo and Stroman, whose histories as strong, somewhat individualistic personalities were well documented.
Boone didn’t want to just rely on second-year captain Aaron Judge to make all the personalities mesh. The 51-year-old was entering his seventh season as Yankees manager, and the last guaranteed year of his contract. He wanted his players to know he has their backs.
“I try to be myself and try to be authentic and I feel like the connection part with these guys, on a different level, is really important,” he said.
"He's been terrific."
– Aaron Boone on Marcus Stroman pic.twitter.com/l4XnhbosuT
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) April 5, 2024
Boone played 12 seasons in the majors. He was an All-Star in 2003 with the Cincinnati Reds, who traded him that season to the Yankees, where he finished the year. Boone became part of Yankees lore with his walk-off home run to beat the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 AL Championship Series.
“I know how hard the game is,” he said. “I know what a grind the season is. I know the pressures these guys face.”
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How it works is simple.
After a win, Bohling flips a game-used baseball to Boone, who pockets it and ponders his candidates while in the high-five line. Then he ducks into his office to write a personal note on the ball before bestowing it upon his choice.
Boone doesn’t consult anyone. He wants his choice to come from the heart.
“Usually,” he said, “it’s a word or a sentence to capture what they did in a game that helped us win. It’s something I’ve enjoyed. I’m glad we’re doing it.”
The players are, too. A sense of anticipation bubbles at the end of the Yankees’ postgame celebrations. Some track Boone as he enters the clubhouse, watching where he’ll go.
Soto said he’s received several game balls from Boone.
“It’s really special,” Soto said. “Your manager comes over to you and tries to give you a little bit of a heads up that it doesn’t matter if anyone else saw what you did, he saw it and he appreciated it. Sometimes it’s for a player that’s not the player of the game, but he made a really good play to help the team to win, and I think he really appreciates that. So I think it’s important.”
Soto said that Boone mentioned to him he might want to collect all the game balls at the end of the season so that the team could put them together and read each message.
“I love Aaron, to be honest with you,” Stroman said. “His energy is so clear. You can tell how much he has confidence in us. You can tell he’s behind us no matter what. But, yeah, it’s very refreshing to play for a manager like that.”
“It’s a great honor to be recognized by your manager,” bullpen coach Mike Harkey said, “Somebody who represented our team well and helped us win a ballgame. That’s what Boonie does every day. He gives the game ball to somebody, and somebody else gets the championship belt. It’s just a good way to honor the guys who really had contributions. It’s pretty cool.”
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Carlos Rodón threw seven innings and allowed just one run in a 9-2 win over the Royals on Tuesday. After the game, he saw Boone approaching him. Boone had a baseball. Rodón was ecstatic.
“I’m always like, ‘Yesss,’ like a little kid,” said Rodón, who said he’s received a game ball three times.
“I like the (player of the game) belt, but the ball is cooler,” he added. “Hopefully I have about seven Aaron Boone autographs before the end of the year.”
And Boone hopes to keep handing them out — not just because it means more wins for the Yankees, but because it means more heartfelt messages between the players and their manager.
“I think it’s important to at least have some level of connection with the manager, and I try to do that,” he said.
(Photo: Vincent Carchietta / USA Today)
Brendan Kuty is a Staff Writer for The Athletic covering the New York Yankees and MLB. He has covered the Yankees since 2014, most recently as a beat reporter for NJ Advance Media. Brendan was honored to receive the 2022 New Jersey Sportswriter of the Year award from the National Sports Media Association. He attended William Paterson University and the County College of Morris, and he is from Hopatcong, N.J.
