As the owner of the most difficult job in baseball directs his team from the dugout rail on the first-base side of the field at Yankee Stadium, he must face 50,000 screaming second-guessers in the stands. Four hundred feet away, in the left-centerfield bullpen, sit another seven or eight: his relief corps.
The game they play is lighthearted: Try to predict Aaron Boone’s moves before he makes them. If the righthanded starter is at 85 pitches entering the seventh with two lefties coming up, will they get a chance at them? If a pitcher has two outs but has just walked the bases loaded, to whom will Boone turn?