TAMPA — On a sunny Wednesday morning last July at Yankee Stadium, Reds bench coach Jim Riggleman sat in the visitors’ dugout and pointed to Austin Romine on the field.
“I managed his dad in winter ball,” Riggleman said. “Worked really hard.
“I never saw him smile.”
Austin Romine, informed of Riggleman’s memory of Kevin Romine, flashed a rare smile himself.
“Like father, like son,” he said.
Actually, “I think ‘never smiled’ is a bit of an overstatement,” Riggleman said of Kevin Romine this past week in a telephone interview, and the same goes for the Yankees’ backup catcher.