TAMPA – It was just a passing conversation with Aaron Boone at Steinbrenner Field, but now it resonates more with Brett Gardner.
“He mentioned that he was a little tired,” said Gardner after Boone took a leave of absence to put a pacemaker on Wednesday to resolve a low heart rate. “Looking back, it’s probably one of the reasons why he wasn’t feeling 100 percent that day. I hope that they realized it at the right time and that it will allow them to do their job in the best possible way in the future. “
The procedure was “as expected,” the Yankees said in a statement, but Boone, who turns 48 on Tuesday, had already done his best to ease his team’s concern about his health problem.
“Whenever you hear about the heart, it is very, very worrying,” said Gardner. “Obviously, he had problems there before. Our thoughts go to him and his well-being, but his first thoughts go to his players and our well-being. It was nice to see that he was at ease. We’re looking forward to bringing him back soon, but we’ll miss him while he’s gone. “
Giancarlo Stanton said Boone did not appear to show any effect before Wednesday.
“How he is acting normally and how he has been able to cope with what is going on shows how strong a person 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 in perspective for me. You don’t know what can happen on any given day. We are all supporting him. “
Although Gardner knew about Boone’s open-heart surgery in 2009 to replace an aortic valve, Ford did not.
“I hope he is kicking and fighting as he normally does,” said Ford. “He wanted to be the one to tell us.”
The bank’s coach, Carlos Mendoza, took part in a call from Zoom earlier in the day and helped tell the news to the players before showing Boone’s video from the hospital.
“I’m not going to say that I was surprised, because obviously I’ve had previous conversations with him, ” said Mendoza about the procedure. “But after talking to him this morning a few times when he was in the hospital, he made me feel really good. The way he was talking, I felt good about it. “
And Zoom’s calls helped.
“Everyone was able to see his face and that made me feel so much better and all of us around here,” said Mendoza, who will serve as a manager while Boone is away. “It made us feel so much better.”