LOS ANGELES — Carlos Mendoza watched from Los Angeles as the team he spent 13 years with made the last out in Cleveland to reach the World Series on Friday night. His heart is no longer pinstriped and his allegiance is now to the team in Queens instead of the Bronx, but still, he felt immense pride watching his close friend and mentor of sorts, Aaron Boone, win the AL pennant.
“It’s not easy,” Mendoza said Sunday at Dodger Stadium ahead of Game 6 of the NLCS. It’s not easy to get to the World Series and they’ve been through a lot. There’s a lot of people that I have a lot of respect for, and hopefully I get to see them. We’ve got to take care of business here. We’re facing a really good team in the Dodgers, but what a great year for [the Yankees].”
Long before Mendoza came to Queens to skipper the Mets, he watched as Boone faced constant adversity. As Boone’s former bench coach, he saw the way fans and pundits alike called for him to be fired. He saw how fans went from embracing Boone, the team’s once-great October hero, to booing him.
There may not be a tougher place to manage or play than New York, which Mendoza understands fully now having been a bench coach for the Yankees and now a first-year manager for the Mets. He has spent much of his first season trying to show baseball that he has his own identity and own managerial style, but it’s been clear all along that he learned a lot from Boone.
The unfailing loyalty to players, even amid turbulent times and slumps, is a very Boone-like quality. It’s one that he took some criticism for during the NLCS after he refused to make lineup changes following a Game 3 shutout at the hands of the Dodgers. Another loss in Game 4 did prompt Mendoza to make changes and he was rewarded with a win.
Boone has been criticized for being too close with players and too loyal to them as well. But his players have largely responded to him when challenged, and the Mets have responded to Mendoza in the same way.
“He’s clear with everyone,” said closer Edwin Diaz. “He talks straight to everyone. We had our conversation early in the year when I wasn’t performing the way everyone was expecting and he talked to me. He told me, ‘We want to give you a break to recover your confidence and everything. As soon as you have it, you will go back to your normal role.’ So that’s something he talked to me about, and he did it. So I respect him a lot.”
Mendoza is still close with many players on the Yankees, especially since he had a few of them, like Gleyber Torres and Aaron Judge, that he worked with as a minor league coach. He sent a lot of text messages to members of the organization Friday night congratulating them and encouraging them. Though he kept the messages private, the passion in voice showed great reverence for his friend Boone.
“I’m proud of him because I think since year one, when he took over in 2018 and they won 100 games, they were still calling for his head,” Mendoza said. “It’s not an easy gig, just like it isn’t easy for every one of us. But I know how hard they had to work to get to this point. And there’s a lot of people that I have a lot of respect for, and definitely Boone is one of them I learned a lot from. It means a lot for them.”
The Mets are two wins away from the mentor managing against the mentee, but with the Los Angeles Dodgers up 3-2 in the series it’s impossible for Mendoza to even think about the possibility of managing against Boone in New York.
Yet watching his former team, he couldn’t help but think that could be the Mets if they can win the next two at Chavez Ravine. It won’t be easy, but the confidence is there.
“You’re watching it on TV and it’s like, man, we still have a chance,” Mendoza said. “We know we have to face a really good team here with the Dodgers and we’ve got to win today because there’s no tomorrow for us. You’re watching them celebrate and it makes you think because we still have an opportunity.”
