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Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2009 > September > 14
Monday, September 14, 2009
Aaron Boone: a man with a big, big heart
It sounds goofy, I know, but it may have been the nicest thing anybody ever said about me and it was uttered Monday in the Houston Astros dugout by Aaron Boone.
Those who know me know how I credit Aaron Boone with adding six years to my career with some tough love.
Boone was doing an interview in the dugout Monday and C. Trent Rosecrans asked Boone about our relationship and he said, “Hal and I are joined at the hip.” What an amazing thing to say.
Boone has always been very downbeat about his part in extending my career, as if he doesn’t even remember doing it. But he did. And that he is fuzzy about it just shows he did it out of compassion and did not expect the credit he gets.
Short version:
After having strokes of the optic nerves in my eyes in 2003, I walked into the spring training clubhouse and everything was dark and blurry. I couldn’t recognize people I’d known for a long time.
Boone saw the perplexed look on my face and said, “What’s up? What’s wrong?” I told him what had happened to my eyes and said, “You’re seeing me for the last time. I’m quitting. I can’t do this.”
Boone grabbed my arm, led me to his locker, sat me down, and said, “I don’t ever want to hear you say the word quit again.” And he gave me other words of encouragement that turned me around that day. I was going to quit. I was going home.
I credit Boone for that everywhere I go and people constantly ask him about it and he shrugs and downplays it. Trust me, he turned me around big-time that day and I’ll never forget it.
Maybe his reward was that game-winning home run he hit for the New York Yankees in the 2003 ALCS, Game 7, against the Boston Red Sox. Nobody was happier for him than I.
AND I GOT TO SEE him again today. We chatted briefly in the clubhouse before his press conference to talk about his open heart surgery. Yes, open heart surgery in March and back in uniform in July.
I was tempted to say, “Well, they finally proved you have a heart.” But I knew that. A big, big heart. If I had, he would have laughed. Moments after I was elected to the Hall of Fame, I received a phone call. Without identifying himself, Boone said to me, “Well, now we know they’ll let anybody into the Hall of Fame.”
BOONE ISN’T concerned that his name rarely is on the Houston Astros lineup card — 0 for 6 since he was added to the roster off rehab on September 1.
“They have about five third basemen on this team, all lined in a row, and they have to see what they can do,” said Boone.
That’s OK with Boone; he is just happy to once again be able to slip on the rust-colored jersey with the No. 8 (his father, Bob’s, number), thrilled to be wearing a major-league uniform.
On March 26 of this year, it was touch-and-go for Boone. And it was about life-and-death, not baseball. Boone underwent open heart surgery.
Amazingly, he is back on the field, ready to play, when called upon, and the 36-year-old, third-round draft pick of the Cincinnati Reds in 1994 talked freely Monday of his ordeal.
Asked if he now has a different perspective on life, Boone said, “No, I’ve always had a pretty healthy perspective on things and maybe this sharpens your appreciation for things. Nothing has changed for me and I’m doing really well.”
The response to his surgery and his recovery is what dazzles Boone.
“Overwhelming,” he said. “That’s been the greatest thing about this whole thing. The people who have reached out to me, people I barely know. It has been absolutely the most touching thing through all this.
“I wouldn’t say it put my faith in humanity, but it really makes you appreciate the many people in your life you’ve come across who have reached out on some level,” he added.
Boone, playing for the New York Yankees, hit the famous game-winning home run in Game 7 of the ALCS in 2003 that beat Boston and somebody said, “You’ve even heard from Red Sox fans?”
Boone didn’t even smile when he answered and said, “They don’t care any more. They’ve won since then and now it is just part of the story.”
Boone wasn’t in Monday’s lineup, but drank it all in and said, “It’s always awesome for me to come to Cincinnati, even though there are no players left with whom I played. It is always great to look around and see Cincinnati.”
For me, it was great to look around and see Aaron Boone and I think, I hope, when I try to throw out the ceremonial first pitch Wednesday, Boone will be there to catch it. He won’t need a glove.
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