At all times, there remains a symmetry between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.
They’re Major League Baseball’s two most recognizable brands, playing on opposite coasts. They each had the Most Valuable Player in their respective leagues last year, and those same players may be repeat winners this year. And a year after the Dodgers took down the Yankees in the World Series, both are hoping to make it back.
It’s a real burden for a manager in either of these two markets to deal with the weight of expectations. For both of these teams, the year is a failure if it doesn’t result in a championship. Both the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts and the Yankees’ Aaron Boone have had their jobs called into question on numerous occasions through the years.
That’s why, as both teams embark on their respective playoff runs on Tuesday, Roberts can empathize with what Boone, who has yet to win a World Series title in his eighth year as the New York skipper, must be dealing with.
“I think Aaron Boone is the only person I feel like I can relate to, with the market, the expectations,” Roberts said Monday, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today. “You know every night seems almost like a Game 7 with the results, the accountability, the micromanaging.
“If you don’t win the World Series, you failed. And that’s not like any other job or profession. But to be quite frank, that’s the path we’ve chosen. Pressure is a privilege. I think it’s a good thing.”
There’s plenty of symmetry between the careers of Roberts and Boone, who once played in college against each other in the Pac-10 in the 1990s — Roberts at UCLA, Boone at USC. They’re two names synonymous with the Yankees-Boston Red Sox rivalry in the early 2000s — Boone’s walk-off homer in 2003, Roberts’ infamous stolen base in 2004.
But despite the tremendous success of both franchises throughout the years, Roberts is the one with two World Series rings as as manager, compared to Boone’s zero.
Whether that changes this year remains to be seen, but Roberts clearly will have some sympathy for Boone if the two look across at each other once more during the World Series.
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