BOSTON -- Bret Boone’s weekend started off pretty normal.
The biggest news on Saturday was when he went to a baseball game at USC, his alma mater, where he threw out the first pitch ahead of a big win over rival UCLA. But that game would actually end up being the most important of Boone’s life recently.
It was at that game that he chatted with Michael Young, the former Rangers great who is currently the club’s special assistant to the general manager. Somehow that conversation snowballed into Boone becoming the Rangers’ new hitting coach.
“It’s a bizarre story,” Boone said on Tuesday at Fenway Park.
Boone got home from the USC game to a call from Rangers manager Bruce Bochy, who also managed Boone in San Diego in 2000.
“He said, ‘We’re going to make a change, and I’d really love to have you put on the uni again. How much interest would you have?’” Boone recalled of his conversation with Bochy. “At first, it was like, whoa. The game today as I see it, one guy that I couldn't say no to would probably be Bruce Bochy. And CY [Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young] I think the world of, too. It was almost a perfect storm. It hit me that I can’t say no to Boch.
“Then it was 24 hours of nonstop getting ready for this. It's been weird emotionally. I think this is meant to be. There's no rhyme or reason, there was no agenda. I wasn't asking for it, and it was just meant to be at this time. So I'm excited about it.”
Boone joined the Rangers in Boston on Tuesday, hoping to revitalize the club’s struggling offense, which had led to the dismissal of offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker.
Entering Tuesday, Texas was 25th in wRC+ (83), 25th in slugging (.359), 25th in batting average (.228), 28th in on-base percentage (.285), 29th in runs (113) and 29th in walk rate (6.7%).
“I’m going to do a lot of listening right now, which is not my forte,” Boone said. “I want to listen now and speak less and get to know these guys, see what makes them tick. It’s a different game now. These kids come up in a different culture. There's more data. There's a lot of numbers, which I didn't have in my time. But at the end of the day, it's still hitting. Hitting is really hard. You can talk in whatever verbiage you want, but hitting still hasn't changed in 150 years.”
It won’t get turned around in a day, or even a week, but Boone wants to enhance the existing hitting staff of hitting coach Justin Viele and assistant hitting coach Seth Conner. He won’t come in making sweeping changes, but he will take the necessary steps to getting the lineup right, one through nine.
“I'm looking forward to getting into it,” Boone said. “This is my life. I grew up in it, played it and now it's time for me to give back. I’ve got a lot to give to this game. This game is an honor to play and now I get to be behind the scenes. I’m there to help the player.”
Though Boone has no previous coaching experience, baseball is in his blood. Boone was a three-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove winner and two-time Silver Slugger Award winner at second base from 1992-2005. He hit above .300 in two seasons (.320 in 1994 and .331 in 2001) and finished his career with a .266 average and 252 home runs.
He’s also the older brother of current Yankees manager Aaron Boone and the son of former Major League player and manager Bob Boone.
“We’ve got a guy with a lot of big league experience,” said third baseman Josh Jung. "His brother coaches the Yankees. He's got a podcast. I feel like he knows ball. I feel like that’ll be good for us. He's gonna bring in a ton of perspective. Especially in times of struggle, getting a new voice and new perspective, I think, will serve us well.”
You don’t need to have played in the big leagues to be a good coach. But it’s clear that Boone’s big league pedigree already carries weight with the players early into his tenure.
“Obviously, he's got a lot of ties to baseball,” left fielder Wyatt Langford said. “I feel like that's something you can never really replace. Just having that experience of being in our shoes and being really good at it, I think that's super important. So I think that's super cool and he’s gonna be really good for us.”