Exciting Hideki Matsui news should inspire Yankees to follow his old team's path

Aaron Boone followed what was potentially his greatest managerial job ever (at least since 2019) with another playoff stinker, resulting in the Yankees' exit at the hands of a higher-seeded team. Again. Boone's latest ringless season will leave him as a lame duck entering 2027; although Hal Steinbrenner extolled his manager's virtues in this week's end-of-year Zoom, he admitted no contract extension talks have taken place.

Yankees fans' pining for Boone's replacement (whoever that may be) is at an all-time high. At the very least, fans are fairly united on how valuable it could be to replace his bench coach with a former player, familiar face, and cultural tone-setter to get the Yankees' standard back. As CC Sabathia recently called out, no one is in the room to remind these players what the franchise used to mean.

Replacing Boone as the head of the snake? Yeah, we might've reached the point where it's become a necessity. But the literal least the Yankees could do is find a harder-nosed former player to take on Brad Ausmus' bench coach role. Ausmus seems to be a plausible managerial candidate in Houston, so it's possible a firing won't even be necessary to create a vacancy (hear that, Hal?!).

Jorge Posada? Francisco Cervelli? David Cone? Paul O'Neill? Sal Fasano? Anyone?!

Meanwhile, while we're over here stuck trying to figure out the best way to bring back echoes of the past, the Yomiuri Giants are hiring Hideki Matsui as their manager. Matsui's not just a former Giant. He's a franchise icon. It's like if the Yankees managed to coerce Derek Jeter into the dugout instead of the guy who hit that one Game 7 home run that one time, then hurt himself playing basketball and paved the way for A-Rod.

Yankees should be inspired by Hideki Matsui news to fulfill CC Sabathia's wish

Maybe the Yankees' choice is ... Sabathia himself? If no star in the sky is too high to shoot for, give Sabathia a call and see how much spare time he has on his schedule. With his son starting his own minor-league journey, he may go in and out, but his return to the dugout would be just as earth-shattering as Matsui trying it on for size.

Best of luck to Matsui, who seems unlikely to return to Old-Timers' Day next year for the coolest reason we can think of. Any Yankee fan looking for a reminder of a time when we actually were Pedro's daddy can look no further than the Giants' dugout.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow