Anthony Rizzo doesn’t sound like a former Yankee trying to settle a score. He sounds like a player who spent enough time in the dugout to know exactly why Aaron Boone keeps making the kind of decisions that drive fans crazy from the outside.
Speaking with Yanks Go Yard during the MLB Playoffs on behalf of PAYDAY's Low Key Legends initiative, Rizzo gave a behind-the-scenes look at the Yankees manager just as Boone talk reached another peak with the team sliding toward an early playoff exit. And for Rizzo, the point was simple: the public version of Boone is not the full picture.
"He's very prepared. He knows an idea and understanding of what he wants to do and he executes.
His in-game decisions - and I know it's so easy, especially as a Yankee fan or a baseball fan, to nitpick everything he does, but there are reasons behind every one of his moves. There's numbers to back it up.
Sometimes, he goes off-script and goes off feel," Rizzo noted.
That’s the part fans rarely get to see. Rizzo’s view was less about defending every call and more about explaining the process underneath it.
In his telling, Boone wasn’t some distant figure making moves in a vacuum. He was active, available and willing to talk through the why.
"I loved [working with him]. I loved talking to him.
I loved asking questions all the time, just understanding what he was thinking," Rizzo told us. "As a player, you want to know what your manager's thinking so you're not caught off guard or talking behind ther back, and he was so open with his moves and his decisions."
Rizzo also pointed to the human side of Boone’s style - the part that lives in the day-to-day, not just the lineup card. That openness, he said, made the relationship work.
The same goes for Aaron Judge, another major voice in the Yankees clubhouse during Rizzo’s time there. Rizzo has already shared a story from the Yankees-Red Sox Wild Card broadcast about Judge snapping back, "We're losing" when Rizzo was soaking in the atmosphere at Fenway Park during the 2021 one-gamer. Rizzo later homered, but the Yankees still fell short.
Asked what Judge is like when the pressure rises, Rizzo didn’t hesitate.
"He's the same. He's the same person at all times," Rizzo emphasized.
Rizzo also described his own job in that setting as part energy, part stabilizer. With Judge carrying the burden that comes with being Player No. 1, Rizzo saw his role as keeping the room loose while still paying attention to the details that matter once the game starts moving fast.
"For me, my role on that team, especially with Judge being the Captain and all the pressure that comes with being Player No. 1, is to make sure everyone's loose and having a good time. I was that in Chicago, and had a lot of guys that always kept me loose," Rizzo continued.
"He's joking around in-game, but also very focused, he's looking at at-bats and talking situations, like, 'Hey, why do you think he threw that pitch here or did that there? Hey, look for this.'
Baserunning stuff. It's all the little things that go into a game that's 95% of the talk in the dugout, but there's always moments where you've got to take it in and have a little bit of humility."
That’s the version of the Yankees Rizzo is describing: a dugout built on conversation, preparation and a manager who, in his view, has reasons for nearly everything he does.
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