Yankees manager Aaron Boone took a unique approach to the traditional weekly radio spot this season by doing a segment with Talkin’ Yanks from Jomboy Media. In his end-of-season interview on the show this week, he got into a disagreement over his managerial approach and whether he goes too soft on his players.
The issue came up when host and founder James “Jomboy” O’Brien asked Boone about his proclivity to keep criticism in-house and make what fans see as excuses for stars like Aaron Judge.
“I’m going to answer (questions) honestly,” Boone said. “Sometimes there’s a bad play that happens in a game that happens when you, who are emotional, that we’re not playing well this week or we haven’t scored and this happens. The outrage.
“I try to have a little bit more, ‘what was happening there, why did it happen?’ Is there more outrage because we lost 1-0 yesterday and we’ve lost three out of four right now? So I’m trying to strike that balance between we need to coach guys up and make sure we’re eliminating as many mistakes as possible, but also not putting ourselves in a position to play tight.”
Aaron Boone called Jomboy emotional for asking why he’s protective of his players pic.twitter.com/bce2oDYNPu
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) October 3, 2023
In the full clip, Boone elaborates by saying that Jomboy’s question “painted [with] a broad brush” that was “not even a little bit true” which is why Boone defended himself.
“Everything’s not black and white,” Boone continued. “Some of them are like, ‘man what was a clear mess-up and we need to address that’ … there’s differences.”
No matter where Yankees fans might fall in this particular debate, from a media standpoint, it’s a fascinating disagreement to even see aired out publicly.
Typically reporters do their best to get answers about what fans want to know. But there are lots of topics that are out-of-bounds for typical reporters because they can come across as unfair or too personal.
With his weekly Talkin’ Yanks spot, Boone is able to address fans directly and answer criticisms that traditional media might ignore.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is an Editorial Lead at Awful Announcing overseeing digital content and special projects. He lives in Phoenix and has covered sports media for Awful Announcing since 2023.