TAMPA – It was just a passing conversation with Aaron Boone at Steinbrenner Field, but it resonates more with Brett Gardner now.
“He told me he was a little tired,” Gardner said after Boone took a leave of absence to have a pacemaker fitted on Wednesday to address a low heart rate. “Looking back, that’s probably one of the reasons he didn’t feel 100 percent that day. I hope they took it at the right time and that it allows him to do his job the best he can. “
The procedure went “as expected,” the Yankees said in a statement, but Boone, who turns 48 on Tuesday, had already done his best to address his team’s concerns about his health problem.
“Anytime you hear about the heart, it’s very, very worrying,” Gardner said. Obviously, he’d had problems there before. Our thoughts go to him and his well-being, but his first thoughts are to his players and our well-being. It was good to see that he was comfortable. We look forward to getting him back here soon, but we’ll miss him when he’s gone. “
Giancarlo Stanton said Boone did not appear to be showing any effects leading up to Wednesday.
“How he’s been acting normally and how well he’s been able to cope with what he’s going through shows how strong he is,” said Stanton.
Mike Ford said the news came as a “shock” to him.
“He’s an incredibly tough guy,” said the first baseman. “It puts things into perspective for me. You don’t know what could happen on any given day. We all support him.”
Although Gardner was aware of the open-heart surgery Boone underwent in 2009 to replace an aortic valve, Ford was unaware.
“I hope he kicks and fights like he normally does,” Ford said. “He wanted to be the one to tell us.”
Bench coach Carlos Mendoza was part of a Zoom call earlier in the day, helping players spread the word before showing Boone’s video from the hospital.
“I’m not going to say I was surprised as I’ve clearly had previous conversations with him,” Mendoza said about the procedure. “But after speaking to him a few times this morning while he was in the hospital, I felt really good with him. The way he spoke, it made me feel good. “
And the Zoom calls helped.
“Everyone could see their face and it made me feel a lot better and all of us around here,” said Mendoza, who will serve as manager while Boone is away. “It made us feel a lot better.”