by Bret Boone
We had the better team. We’d won five more games that season than New York. The Yankees’ aces, Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, were coming off 14-win seasons, while our staff, with its three first-ballot Hall of Famers, might have been the best in baseball history. Their top power hitters, Bernie Williams and Tino Martinez, combined to hit 53 homers while Chipper swatted 45 all by himself. Brian Jordan, Ryan Klesko, and I added another 64. They had an edge at short with Derek Jeter slashing .349/.438/.552 to Weiss’s .226/.315/.323, but everybody from the Vegas bookmakers to USA Today and the New York Post made us a clear favorite.
In Game 1 at Turner Field, Maddux dueled the Yankees’ crafty Orlando Hernandez, aka El Duque, into the eighth inning. We led 1–0 on Chipper’s solo home run, our only base hit. After Maddux walked Darryl Strawberry in the eighth our first baseman, Brian Hunter, booted a bunt. Now the bases were loaded with nobody out. Jeter tied the game with a single to left. That brought our manager, Bobby Cox, out of the dugout. I joined him on the mound along with Chipper, Weiss, and our catcher, Eddie Perez.
Bobby had our closer, John Rocker, warmed up. He would have left Maddux in the game anyway except for the fact that Rocker was a lefty and so was the Yankees’ next batter, Paul O’Neill. So Cox waved to the bullpen. Two months later Rocker, a country boy from Macon, Georgia, would become the most hated guy in America for telling Sports Illustrated he couldn’t stand riding New York subways with “some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS next to some dude who just got out of jail.” I had some sympathy for Rocker—not for his intolerance, but because he thought it was off-the-record bar talk when he said it. My immediate concern was the 3-1 fastball he threw O’Neill, who pulled it into the hole between me and Jordan. I dived, but couldn’t get it. Two runs scored, and after Rocker walked in a run we went to the ninth inning trailing by three. My single off Mariano Rivera, the Braves’ second hit of the night, wasn’t enough. We lost 4–1. Advantage New York.
Before Game 2, Braves owner Ted Turner strolled into our clubhouse with his wife, Jane Fonda. Everyone thought Jane looked mighty fine for sixty-one. She smiled while we reached for our towels and uni pants. Ted gave us the sort of rah-rah speech that makes players roll their eyes. “Guys, I’m proud of all you’ve done this season, winning a hundred and three games.” He’s the owner, he’s got the right. “We’re only down one game. Let’s go out there and stick it to ’em!” By then my eyes were bulging, not rolling, because I’d seen the Braves’ lineup posted in the dugout. With Keith Lockhart at second base.
Lockhart was a journeyman. A good guy with a reliable glove, he was a tough out but didn’t have much power. That was the reason the Braves traded for me in the first place. But Lockhart batted left-handed, and Cox wanted to fill our lineup with lefties against David Cone, the Yanks’ starter in Game 2. I thought it was a dumb move. It smacked of desperation. I’d been our second baseman in 152 of 162 games. Now I’m benched for batting right-handed?
To piss me off worse, Cox handled it wrong. Eight-year veterans who play every day shouldn’t need to check the lineup when they get to the park. If the manager plans to give them a day off, he’s supposed to mention it the night before. That’s protocol. It gives the veteran a chance to digest the bad news. But did Bobby do that? No, I found out when I saw the lineup card. Batting sixth, playing second base, Lockhart. Benched, grinding his teeth, Boone.
Bobby Cox deserves the Hall of Fame plaque he earned in 2014. But he blew it that night. We were down 7–0 in the ninth when he finally turned to me and said, “Pinch-hit.”
You can imagine how eager I was to pinch-hit. I replied with a clever retort. “Fuck that, Bobby!”
Bobby wasn’t in the best mood himself. “You don’t want to fucking pinch-hit?”
“I can’t hit an eight-run homer, Mr. Lineup.”
“You’re refusing to pinch-hit?”
“Bobby,” I said, “you’re the manager. I’m the player. I’m pissed as hell, but I respect your position. If you say pinch-hit, I’ll pinch-hit.”
I ripped a double down the left-field line to drive in Keith Lockhart. We lost 7–2 and flew to New York down two games to none in a Series we were supposed to win.
Damn, but I liked that town. The energy, the swagger, the sex appeal, the fun. New York reminded me of me. I always thought I might wind up with the Yankees someday. The next-best thing was playing for the visiting team at Yankee Stadium in a World Series.
I didn’t have to check the lineup card before Game 3. No way Bobby’d bench me now, not with lefty Andy Pettitte starting against us. In the first inning Gerald Williams singled and I doubled. Chipper’s groundout drove Williams home. I doubled again in the third and doubled in a run in the fourth to put us up 4–1. That gave me four doubles in a row, a postseason record. We led 5–3 until Joe Girardi—another light-hitting, cerebral catcher who would become a fine manager—singled ahead of Chuck Knoblauch’s homer. In the ninth, with the score 5–5, Yankees manager Joe Torre wanted to put our nuts in a wringer. He went to the best closer ever, Mariano Rivera, to shut us down in a tie game.
I led off the inning. Standing in the on-deck circle I heard Bob Sheppard, the Yankees’ legendary stadium announcer, say my name. “Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen,” Sheppard announced. “The second baseman, number twenty-four, Bret Boone.” Thousands of Yankees fans booed. I told myself they were yelling “Booo-oone.” I had to laugh.
There was no point in swinging for the fences against Rivera’s sideways cutter. His ball was as heavy as Maddux’s. You take what you can get against a pitcher that good. My job was to get on base no matter how, so I shortened my swing and poked a single to right field. That was a heady moment. Rounding first, getting a smack on the butt from first-base coach Glenn Hubbard, I was 6-for-10 in the World Series, 2-for-2 off Mariano. And now Cox, having a less than stellar Series, made another move. He sent Otis Nixon out to pinch-run for me.
Let’s stop the tape and discuss this for a second.
I wanted to stay in the game. That’s a given. But it also made sense for me to stay in. Suppose we go to extra innings. You’d want my bat in the lineup in the 11th or 12th. You’d want my Gold Glove in the field. Yes, Nixon could fly, but he was forty years old, a 79 percent base-stealer. No sure thing. Yanks catcher Girardi had a strong arm. Rivera was pretty good at holding runners on, particularly for a right-hander. Only four runners all season tried to steal when he was on the mound.
There’s no sure right and wrong in a spot like that one. That’s the chess game, the mess of percentages and possibilities that affect every move of every game. In my never-humble opinion, it’s one of the things that make baseball the best game of all. If Nixon steals second, maybe we come back to win the Series, and next thing you know we’re parading down Peachtree Street in Atlanta with the trophy and I’m smiling and telling Cox, “I guess you were right, you son of a bitch.”
Here’s what actually happened: Nixon pinch-ran for me. He took off, and Girardi threw him out. The Braves’ rally (triggered by Boone, the papers would have said) didn’t happen. We lost in the 10th and the Yankees led the Series three games to none. We never gave up—we had Smoltz lined up to start Game 4 and figured we could run the table. But the odds were twenty times worse than if we’d won Game 3. The smart money could no longer detect our pulse. In my view that was partly because our manager hurt our chances in the ’99 World Series. His calls were defensible, but they didn’t pan out. I think we got a little Cox-blocked.
Game 4 was do-or-die. And we’d have to get past Roger Clemens.
I had some history with Clemens. Along with Pedro Martinez he was the most notorious headhunter in the game, a mean SOB who wouldn’t hesitate to drill you for hitting a home run off him. Or a double. Or a single. Or arguing a strike call. Or taking too much time adjusting your jock. In Clemens’s view, I’d been guilty of swinging too hard.
Back in my first week in the majors, the Mariners went to Boston. First we fac
ed Frank Viola, the tall, mustachioed lefty with a deadly changeup. Viola threw a circle change, a pitch he held between his thumb and index finger and rolled off the other three fingers. It looks like a fastball, but never gets to you. And you just don’t see a pitch that nasty in the minors.
Apparently Clemens was working out in the gym under the stands, watching the game on TV, when I came up against Viola. Cramped, ancient Fenway Park happened to be one of the last ballparks where opposing teams shared a weight room, and who do you think was sitting next to Roger? It was Harold Reynolds, the guy I’d been brought up to replace. They watched me strike out, taking my typical lusty rip at Viola’s circle change. At that point, as I’ve heard the story, Clemens said, “Harold, if that cocky rookie takes a hack like that at me, I’m going to flip him.”
The next night, facing Boston’s Mike Gardiner, I belted my first big-league homer. The day after that, in my fourth game in the majors—August 23, 1992—I stepped in against Clemens. And lined a bullet up the middle for a single. He spent the next minute stomping around the mound, staring at me, yelling, “You little shit! You cocky little fuck!”
“Shut up, you big fuck! You think you scare me? You don’t!”
My next time up, he hit me in the head. With a 98-mph fastball. On purpose.
I bounced up, dusted myself off, and laughed all the way to first base. Roger and I were probably not going to be friends.
Unfortunately for us, he was practically unhittable in Game 4. I got my knock and walk, but Clemens held us to three singles through seven innings. My eighth-inning single drove in Atlanta’s only run in a 4–1 loss that completed the Yankees’ sweep. I finished my first World Series with a batting average of .538, but who cared? Our clubhouse felt like a funeral home. Ted and Jane stayed away.
I barely heard the reporters’ postgame questions. Some of them had found out about my little shouting match with the manager during Game 2. “Bret, can you still play for Bobby? Will you demand a deal?” As a player who’d been traded in the middle of a multiyear contract, I could demand to be traded, but it hadn’t entered my mind. Bobby Cox wasn’t perfect, but who is? I still thought he was one of the four or five best managers in the game. So I mumbled something noncommittal. They turned it into a story: BOONE TO DEMAND DEAL?
A couple of days later I’m cleaning out my locker when the GM stops by. “Bret, I want to ask you a question.” I liked that. If John Schuerholz had something on his mind, he said it. “Did you tell the press you want to be traded?”
“No, John. I didn’t.”
Pretty soon he was asking reporters why I’d even dream of leaving the Braves. “Where would he go?” Schuerholz said. “Heaven? What’s better than playing in Atlanta?”
Was he joking? I mean, I like Atlanta, but it’s not paradise. I told the writers that I hadn’t demanded a trade.
“So you won’t demand one?” they asked.
“Well, I didn’t say that, either.” My contractual right to force a trade was worth a lot of money. I’d earned $2.9 million of Ted Turner’s billions in 1999, only $100,000 more than Marge Schott’s Reds paid me the year before. I’d be looking for a raise in 2000, and my right to demand a trade was a bargaining chip.
Before long my phone buzzed. It was Tom Reich, my agent. He said, “Schuerholz traded you.”
“Whaa-at?”
“You and Ryan Klesko to the Padres for Wally Joyner, Reggie Sanders, and Quilvio Veras.”
So I was headed back to Southern California—not to the Dodgers with their glittering history, or even the Angels, but to the San Diego Padres, whose loss in the 1998 World Series was an uptick in a long, lousy history. San Diego got swept by the Yankees in the ’98 Series, just like we did the next year, then went back to losing in 1999 and looked like they were getting worse. Except for All-Stars Tony Gwynn and Trevor Hoffman, their biggest names would be Phil Nevin, the power-hitting third baseman, and me. Gwynn was forty. And manager Bruce Bochy’s no-name rotation had trouble holding leads for closer Hoffman to preserve.
At least they wanted me. That’s what Gramps and Dad and Aaron kept saying. And look at the bright side—you’ll play home games an hour from home.
Mom and Dad’s house in Orange County. Hmm. That got me thinking. Dad had a weight room at home, a pro-style gym where he still worked out. At age fifty-two, with his hair going gray, he could still bench-press his weight with ease. He could knock out 500 sit-ups, take a coffee break, and do 500 more. And here I was at thirty years old, switching to a half-ounce-lighter bat every September because the grueling six-month season wore me down.
I decided it was time to get in shape. Dad and I had remade my swing the off-season before. Now I wanted to get fitter than ever. Once again, he was my example. How far past his numbers could I go if I got as fit as Dad was in his prime? How far past my numbers?
There was just one thing: no kung fu. Dad could keep all the Jackie Chan dance moves.
In the fall of 1999 I hired Tim Michaels, the trainer who’d helped sculpt Tim “Rock” Raines’s physique. It turned out I was born to be a gym rat. Dad was all about flexibility; I was more of a bodybuilder. The weight-room competition to lift ten more pounds, the adrenaline rush of a treadmill sprint or one more set of lifts, the pleasure of a well-earned 1,200-calorie dinner—to me, all that was the best rush this side of a ballgame. It’s addictive. By January 2000 I was in the shape of my life, 175 pounds with eight-pack abs and high-caliber guns. I could flip a dime on my biceps by flexing. I knew I was on the brink of my best years.
And here’s another place to pause the tape.
If you’re like 99.9 percent of fans and announcers, you’re conditioned to think that strength in the gym means power at the plate. Everybody knows that hitters work out so they can hit more homers.
But everybody’s wrong. In real life, it doesn’t work that way. To see why, you need to see Walt Weiss, one of the best teammates you’ll ever have, in the shower. Nobody was more ripped than Walt. Nobody spent more time in the gym or knocked out more bench-press reps. He was taller than I was. But in fourteen big-league seasons, Walt never hit more than eight home runs. He averaged three homers a year. He used to shake his head and say, “Boonie, I’m stronger than ninety-five percent of the league, and I can’t hit the ball out of my shadow.”
Power is mysterious. Power is all about keeping your lower half square to the plate while your core muscles twist, generating bat speed. It’s a mix of strength, timing, and the torque of those torso muscles uncoiling the instant the ball reaches the hitting zone.
So why get strong? Not to hit homers. You get strong in the offseason and work out all season so you don’t get weak in August and September. Because a baseball season is a marathon. No pro athlete plays more games, flies more miles, or gets to more towns at 4 a.m. than a baseball player. The weak fade in August. They go on the disabled list in September. That’s when the strong survive.
I wanted to get strong and stay strong all season. Not to prove that Bobby Cox shouldn’t have benched me, or that that Braves (or Reds or Mariners) should have kept me. I didn’t have to prove anything to anybody. I was an established major leaguer. But what if I could do better?
You want to hear about a gym rat? I became such a gym rat that Tony Gwynn tagged along, hoping I could help him improve.
Tony and I hit it off from the start. He was practically the patron saint of San Diego. I loved his quick-wristed swing, as well as his squeaky voice, infectious laugh, and sunny attitude. One of the purest hitters who ever lived, he told me he could actually guide the ball to particular spots on the field. He could “hit ’em where they ain’t.” But by the time I got to San Diego, his forty-year-old knees were shot. He had to ice them before and after games, even between innings. I said, “Tony, you could hit .300 for another ten years, but who’s going to run for you?” Tony could have played till he was forty-five, maybe fifty, if he’d been willing to go to the American League as a DH, but he was loyal to the Padres. He
was determined to retire as a Padre even if it cost him five years, millions of dollars, and hundreds of hits. He knew he was on his last legs, but he just wanted to hang on as long as he could.
By then I’d paired my workout routine with a serious commitment to nutrition. Tony said, “Boonie, put me on a diet. I gotta lighten the load on my knees.”
Working with the clubhouse chef, I came up with a menu Tony swore he could live with. The Tony Gwynn Diet featured grilled chicken and fish, steamed vegetables, brown rice, egg whites, avocado, and almonds. And he gobbled it up. This went on for days.
Actually, it went on for day. On the second day, I rolled into the clubhouse to find Tony sitting at his locker, eating nachos with both hands. “Sorry, Boonie,” he said. “I couldn’t do it! But let’s both get three knocks today, what do you say?”
All he did was hit .323 that season, his second-to-last.
Courtesy of the Boone family
My grandfather Ray Boone was a gamer who became an All-Star and once led the American League in RBIs.
Courtesy of the Boone family
In 1951 Gramps hit the dirt to complete a double play for the Cleveland Indians.
Courtesy of the Boone family
That’s my dad—the happy baby with Indians rookie Gramps and Grandma Patsy in 1948.
Courtesy of the Boone family
Cute couple! My parents, Bob and Sue Boone, got married in La Mesa, California, in 1967. They were both nineteen.
Icon Sportswire via AP Images
Dad came up through the minors as an infielder, and then turned himself into one of the best catchers in history.
© The Phillies/Paul Roedig
Talk about feeling at home in the big leagues—I grew up about ninety feet from home plate.