Backstory to Aaron Boone setting up Yankees legend’s surprise return for All-Star Game

NEW YORK — Aaron Boone wanted his first All-Star Game as a manager to be extra special.

His entire Yankees coaching staff will be joining him in Atlanta next month along with Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, who was invited by Boone.

And …

A Yankees legend who managed the organization to six pennants and four World Series championships from 1996-2007 also will be in the American League dugout.

In unform, too.

Joe Torre, a Hall of Fame guest instructor at Yankees spring training the last two years, has accepted an invite from Boone to be an honorary AL coach in this year’s All-Star Game, which will be played at Truist Park on Tuesday, July 15.

Managers from the previous season’s World Series skipper the All-Star Game, so Boone has the American League honors while Dave Roberts, manager of the reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, will manage the National League.

Here’s how Boone received an All-Star Game commitment from Torre, who turns 84 on July 18:

“Obviously, Joe has come back to spring training the last couple years, and in 2024 in spring training I think he was excited to come but a little reluctant to get back in uniform,” Boone said before Tuesday night’s Yankees-Angels’ game. “I got him back in uniform a few hours into him being in camp. Then I got him taking a mound visit a couple days later, and I think he loved it. And I know our guys loved being around him.

“I know this year he was really looking forward to coming back to spring training. He did. He was in uniform. He’s just awesome to be around. What gets me excited is I know he’s enjoying it.

“So at the end of spring training, knowing that eventually I’m going to invite another American League manager, I had the idea that it would be pretty cool if Joe Torre came. So I actually went to the league and asked, ‘What do you think about Joe coming to the All-Star Game being in uniform?’ They loved the idea.

“So then I went to Joe, and I said, ‘You don’t have to answer this right now, just hear me out.’ And then I asked him if he would he consider coming, and right away he was like, ‘Yes.’ And he seemed really excited about it. He seemed moved by it. It could not have gone better in my eyes. So I’m excited to have the skipper with us.

“And obviously he has some ties with Atlanta, too, so there’s that tie-in, too.

Torre started his playing career as a catcher with the Milwaukee Braves in 1960, and following the franchise’s relocation, he played for the Atlanta Braves from 1966-68, the first two All-Star seasons. The second of Torre’s five stints as a manager included three seasons (and one division championship) with the Braves from 1982-84.

In 2003, Torre managed Boone, who played in his only All-Star Game that summer and then was traded by the Cincinnati Reds to the Yankees on July 31. Boone, of course, became a Yankees postseason hero that October when he hit a pennant-winning, walk-off homer against the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series at the old Yankee Stadium.

Since Boone became a rookie manager with the Yankees in 2018, Torre has been a mentor.

“He pops in every so often into the office,” Boone said. “He gives me my space, but always is kind of aware a little bit of what’s going on within the team. And so it’s just that sage, a lot of experience, wisdom that he’ll pass along to me just quietly. He’s always just really gracious and I think empathetic of the (manager) chair.”

Boone also is thrilled that his entire coaching staff will get to experience an All-Star Game. Bench coach Brad Ausmus was an All-Star catcher representing the Detroit Tigers in 1999, but none of the Yankees’ other coaches have been to an All-Star Game.

“I’m really excited about it,” Boone said. “Obviously the All-Star break is a time where a lot of us coaches, managers, players forward to those few days off. I am thrilled to be going and I know our staff, too.

“A lot of those guys, in a lot of ways it will be the experience of a lifetime to get to be in an All-Star Game around the greatest in the world to do it.

“You’re always in that competition mode with other clubs and other teams and players and staffs. To get to share the same uniform with guys you compete against all the time is a little pause in things and something that I know I’m going to cherish and I’m sure most of our staff will.”

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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.