Yankees manager Boone vividly remembers wild ‘Arson Judge’ fiasco originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – A shower at the MLB Winter Meetings isn’t usually followed by the noise of a cell phone buzzing non-stop. For New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone, that was his world in December 2022, when he stepped out of the shower expecting to get dressed for his usual mundane media car wash.
Boone actually stepped into one of the craziest offseason scenes in recent memory. All thanks to one tweet. Not a single tweet.
Perhaps the most tweeted spelling mistake ever.
Arsonist will live forever. However, Aaron Judge is in his second season of a nine-year, $360 million contract to remain a Yankee. The alternative was the Giants or San Diego Padres, and for a few minutes, columnist and MLB insider Jon Heyman had the entire baseball world believing that Judge was headed to the Bay instead of the Bronx.
Heyman tweeted on December 6, 2022, “Judge’s arson appears headed to Giants,” before tweeting four minutes later that the Giants had not heard from Judge and apologized for “skipping the gun.”
“It wasn’t a high moment,” Boone recalled Friday at Oracle Park during his pregame news conference before the Yankees played the Giants. “But the next morning things turned around.”
Then the 2022 MVP made it official that he was using navy blue pinstripes instead of orange and black.
While Boone didn’t believe Heyman’s initial tweet was true, typos and all, he admitted it made him “uneasy.” Boone hadn’t spoken to Judge yet and couldn’t be 100 percent sure which direction his Northern California superstar was leaning. But the two did speak later that night, six or eight hours after social media was on fire after dinner around 9 p.m., before the Yankees owner had even heard from him.
The next morning, Boone’s phone lit up again. This time the messages were all positive. The sentiment wasn’t exactly the same in San Francisco.
“Literally waking up the next morning to texts and things from friends that he was back, it was pretty early in the morning, it was obviously a good wake up call,” Boone said.
Judge, a three-sport star at Linden High School, is playing for the first time since the whole debacle against the Giants at Oracle Park a year and a half ago. Friday will mark the first time Judge has ever played against the Yankees in San Francisco. He was dealing with a strained left oblique in 2019 when the Yankees traveled to play the Giants.
The former AL MVP played 15 games in the Bay Area, hitting five home runs at the Oakland Coliseum and making three appearances against the Giants at Yankee Stadium. In those three games, Judge hit .462 (6-for-13) with two home runs and four RBI.
Judge followed up his historic 2022 season by hitting 37 home runs last year. No Giant has hit 30 home runs since Barry Bonds last played in 2007.
As for the reception Judge will receive from Giants fans, Boone took a long, thoughtful pause. Boone played 12 MLB seasons and is in his seventh year as manager of the Yankees. His family is of baseball descent and has the same red color as the seams of a ball. While Judge’s batting practice generated the most pre-game fandom in years, Boone knows the boo birds likely won’t be completely silenced.
“I don’t know. I mean… I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Boone said. “I mean, I know he’s excited to come play here. I know Northern California has a lot of him, his family is still there. I know he’s happy to be back.
“I imagine that, like most superstars, there are always mixed reactions. That’s definitely the case when we go somewhere, so I’m sure there will be a little bit of that. But he’s also such a beloved figure for being one of the faces of the sport that it’s hard to dislike Aaron.”
Whatever feelings Giants fans have toward Judge will be heard. Feelings are feelings. The reality is that Judge has played all 58 games this season and leads all major leagues in home runs (18), walks (45), slugging percentage (.617), OPS (1.020) and OPS+ (186), while is at the top. the American League in doubles (18) and total bases (129).
It took Shohei Ohtani one game to record his first two goals in San Francisco earlier this month, and two games before he almost launched his first long ball into McCovey Cove. The Giants will do everything they can to keep a clean sheet next to Judge’s hit totals in this park, and no cheers or boos will make a difference.
“I think Aaron, in my opinion, is where he should be,” Boone said.
We’ll see if Oracle Park agrees in the next three games.
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