Believe it or not...Aaron Boone actually has some history with Washington GM Jim Bowden from his time with the Cincinnati Reds, and now Aaron F. Boone joins Felipe Lopez, Dmitri Young, Austin Kearns, Wily Mo Pena, and other Reds baseball-emigres who have rejoined Bowden in DC, after the thirty-two year old infielder signed a deal with the Nationals this week.
Jim Bowden was GM of the Reds in 1994 when Aaron Boone, then twenty-one, was drafted 72nd overall, in the 3RD Round of the that year's Amateur Draft out of the University of Southern California, (USC), where Boone had, according to his MLB.com bio on washington.nationals.mlb.com, "hit .308 during three seasons."
Aaron Boone moved through three levels of the Reds' Minor League system in three years and by the end of 1997 had made his MLB debut on June 20, 1997, twenty-five years after his father Bob Boone, also now in the Nationals organization, had debuted in the Majors with Philadelphia.
A ten-year veteran of Major League Baseball, Aaron Boone joins his father and the Nationals in DC after serving in a part-time role for the Florida Marlins last season, a role in which Boone, in 69 games, managed to hit .286, with 11 doubles, 5 HR's and 28 RBI's in 189 at bats.
Boone is, of course, known to most as the Boston Red Sox fans least favorite player as a result of the dramatic 2003 ALCS bomb off Tim "Knuckles" Wakefield that Boone hit as a Yankee, which ended Game 7 of the series after 11 excruciatingly-tense innings of play.
The Baseball Almanac's (www.baseball-almanac.com) profile on Aaron Boone has a great quote on the home run from Boone himself:
"It's always tough to hit a knuckleball. So when I saw (Tim)
Wakefield, I was thinking about taking some pitches. Then
I stepped out of the box, took a deep breathe and said to
myself, 'You know what? You've been thinking too much
kid. Just go and take a swing.' That's what I did on the
first pitch I saw. Maybe I should do that before every pitch
I see from now on."
In 10 MLB seasons, Boone has put together a .265 Career batting average with 203 doubles, 120 HR's, 527 RBI's and 107 steals, while making just 137 errors in 1,025 games while seeing some time at every infield position.
Last season, the Nationals had D'Angelo Jimenez ('07-.245, 2HR, 25 RBI's in 102 AB's) and Tony Batista ('07-.257, 2 HR, 16 RBI's in 101 AB's) coming off the bench as extra infielder, so Boone's (.286, 5 HR's and 28 RBI's in 187 AB's) are not much of an improvement statistically for that role, but Boone's veteran presence on the roster is bound to help on what figures to be a young Nationals team.
*Aaron Boone Links*
mlb.com's Bill Ladson's article, "Nationals make a trio of moves" at washington.nationals.mlb.com:
Aaron Boone's stats at thebaseballcube.com:
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/B/aaron-boone.shtml
wikipedia.org profile on the '03 ALCS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_American_League_Championship_Series
Baseball Almanac's Aaron Boone profile:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=booneaa01
Aaron Boone's "Player File" at washington.nationals.mlb.com: