Brett Gardner's son Miller remembered as 'great kid' by Mets and Yankees managers

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The Yankees and Mets gathered at Clover Park on Monday for a spring training game. But for people in both dugouts with ties to the Yankees, the news from Sunday that former Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner’s 14-year-old son Miller had died on Friday after contracting an illness on a family vacation was still hard to process.

Brett Gardner has not returned to Yankee Stadium since his final season in 2021. But the memories of a young Miller running around the clubhouse with his brother, Hunter, are still fresh.

Miller was remembered as a “great kid” by Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, who played in the minor leagues with Brett Gardner and later coached him with the Yankees.

Miller and Hunter used to play video games with Mendoza’s two sons during their visits to Yankee Stadium. Brett Gardner spent his entire 14-year career with the Yankees from 2008-21.

“Miller — very humble, very respectful, good manners,” Mendoza told Newsday before Monday’s game. “You could tell that Jessica and Brett, great parents in the way they were raising him. I always saw a happy kid, always a smile on his face.”

Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who called Miller’s death “every parent’s worst nightmare,” also remembered the brothers and their time with the Yankee family.

“They were both always around,” Boone, the Yankees’ manager since 2018, told Newsday. “Especially when you start going to the playoffs and the families are together, the kids bond. Families, moms, and stuff like that.

“He was young when he was here, so I haven’t seen him in a few years. Just a great kid. Just a really great, close family, the 'Gardys' are. Brett and Jessica have done a great job with those boys. It's just heartbreaking. No other way to say it . . . I think everyone can imagine what they must be feeling.”

Boone and Mendoza said they both reached out to Gardner to offer their condolences.

The Yankees invited Gardner to Old-Timers' Day last season because they were honoring the 2009 World Series-winning team that he was on. Gardner did not attend, with his agent saying he had committed to going to one of his sons’ football games.

Mendoza and Boone both said they were not surprised that Gardner has chosen to live the private life with his family in his native South Carolina.

“Guys spend so much — pretty much all their career and all their life — giving to the game," Mendoza said. "The family time is less and less and less unless you’re retired. I was glad and proud that they were enjoying the time as a family.”

"I know he’s been coaching his boys in football and baseball and around them doing that," added Boone. "So, no, I get it.”

On Sunday, the Yankees released a statement from the Gardners that said, in part: “We have so many questions and so few answers at this point, but we do know that he passed away peacefully in his sleep. Miller was a beloved son and brother and we cannot yet comprehend our life without his infectious smile. He loved football, baseball, golf, hunting, fishing, his family and his friends. He lived life to the fullest every single day.”

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.