Motivating the Yankees with the bloody Red Sox?!
Yankees manager Aaron Boone (17) speaks to the media during the pregame press conference before Game 4 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Oct 23, 2022. Credit: Newsday/William Perlman
From the “what in the world were they thinking?” department comes this unfathomable item on the night the Yankees tried and failed to save their season in Game 4 of the ALCS against the Astros in the Bronx:
For motivational purposes, according to manager Aaron Boone, Yankees director of mental conditioning (that’s a real thing) Chad Bohling made a video of highlights of the only team in MLB history to win a seven-game series after being down 3-0, as the Yankees were heading into Sunday.
That video showed highlights of the 2004 Red Sox coming back to shock the world and win the ALCS.
Against the Yankees.
So the Yankees wanted to show their players a compilation of one of the darkest chapters in team history as some sort of motivation before a win-or-go-home game against a Houston team that has not lost once this entire postseason?
And a bunch of truly smart baseball people signed off on that?
“We watched that video today,” Boone said. “We sent it out to all our coaches and are getting it out to all of our players. I think [the message is] just the belief that they had. They had confidence.”
Why did the Yankees stop there?
Why not show a grainy clip of Yankees slugger Babe Ruth getting thrown out trying to steal second for the final out of the 1926 World Series? How about Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer in Pittsburgh to beat the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series?
Seattle’s Edgar Martinez should be in there for his series-ending hit in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS. How about Cleveland’s Sandy Alomar Jr. homering off Mariano Rivera to tie Game 4 of the 1997 ALDS? And don’t forget Arizona’s Luis Gonzalez hitting a bloop single to beat Rivera in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.
Is footage of the Hindenburg disaster available?
To make matters worse — and this one isn’t the Yankees’ doing — Boone revealed that he got a personal pregame pep talk on Sunday from Hall of Famer David Ortiz, one of the Red Sox’s heroes of 2004.
Big Papi. Urging on the manager of the Yankees.
That one happened when ESPN broadcaster Eduardo Perez was in Boone’s office on Sunday and FaceTime called Ortiz.
“He answered and I was like, ‘Hey,’ “ Perez said later. “And he’s like, ‘Dude!’ He’s like [to Boone], ‘Man, you guys got to do what we did back then!’ And that’s how it was. I didn’t tell Boonie I was calling him.”
Perez, a former major-leaguer and son of Hall of Famer Tony Perez, said the call with Ortiz lasted less than a minute.
Boone said the motivational video the team shared with the players was three to four minutes.
Ask any Yankees fan if they’d like to watch three to four minutes of highlights of the Yankees blowing the 2004 ALCS to the Red Sox? Of Ortiz’s walk-off heroics and Dave Roberts’ historic steal and, finally, Johnny Damon’s grand slam off Javier Vazquez in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium.
ESPN did a whole “30 for 30” on the 2004 ALCS called “Four Days in October.”
Know any Yankees fans who watched it? Was that before or after they poked themselves in the eye with a sharp stick?
Look, motivational videos and Knute Rockne speeches and anything else the Yankees could think of to overcome the Astros weren’t going to make a bit of difference if they didn’t simply play better, starting with Game 4, which was delayed at the start on Sunday night by a bad forecast.
Boone said he didn’t have any big talk with the players before Game 4.
“Keep it small, try and win the next play,” he said. “Go out and try and win pitches in that first inning and keep the focus in that regard — real small, knowing we got to win a game today, and then we can move forward from that. But just focus on getting ready.”
If getting ready for the gargantuan task of overcoming a 3-0 deficit means clicking on a video of the 2004 Red Sox embarrassing the franchise you currently play for, the best advice is probably to send that video right to the trash folder.
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.
