Pride, power … and complaining about bad airplane food? Former Yankees captains on what awaits Aaron Judge
AARON JUDGE BEGINS 2023 as the 16th captain in the storied history of the New York Yankees.
He joins a list that features icons like Babe Ruth (who served for just five days, but … it counts), Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, Don Mattingly and, most recently, Derek Jeter. He’s the face of one of North America’s premier sports franchises, a celebrity in one of the world’s biggest cities. One day, his plaque likely will sit in Monument Park for his great-great grandchildren to see.
There are also the responsibilities. Like setting the tone for the team. Representing the community. Hearing complaints about airplane food.
*blinks*
Wait, what?
Just ask Ron Guidry, a Yankees captain from 1986 to 1989. The former Cy Young Award winner told ESPN he once had to walk, in full uniform, into the office of the famously mercurial — and intimidating — George Steinbrenner to talk to the owner, not about pennant races or the finer points of pitching, but about the sorry state of the team’s in-flight meals.
It’s all in a day’s work for the captain of the Yankees.
Those duties now fall onto the shoulders of Judge, from what we’ll see him do every day on the field, to what we’ll never see him have to do away from it.
“We had [player] meetings because the food on the flights wasn’t good,” Guidry recalled. “Who are you gonna complain to? The players don’t want to stir the pot with the manager or ownership. They come to you, and you make a note as the captain and you have to talk to someone. You’re a spokesperson.”
Guidry said he first approached manager Billy Martin, but he could barely get a word in before Martin, a legendary figure in his own right, stopped him.
“Not my department,” Martin announced. “Go talk to the man upstairs.”
So Guidry called the Yankees executive suite and asked the switchboard operator if Steinbrenner was in. When she gave him the greenlight, Guidry ran upstairs — still wearing his pinstripes.
“What’s your problem now?” Steinbrenner asked.
“I don’t have a problem with you,” Guidry replied. “Your team does.”
Steinbrenner listened as Guidry channeled his inner Jerry Seinfeld and passed on the word that the food on the team’s flights had not been up to par. Players had stopped eating it, and when they arrived in their destination cities late at night, all the restaurants typically were closed.
“I’ll take care of it,” Steinbrenner told him.
By the time the Yankees next went on the road, the team had changed airline carriers. Their first meal on the new airline? Chateaubriand steak and lobster tail.
WHEN THE YANKEES named Judge captain late last month, after the slugger signed a nine-year, $360 million contract to remain in the Bronx, the team brought out the full pomp and circumstance for the occasion. Jeter — who produced an ESPN documentary series last year called The Captain, based on his career — and Willie Randolph — Guidry’s co-captain from 1986 to 1988 — attended the press conference to help pass the baton.
Jeter and Randolph know the job comes with the increased scrutiny of Yankees fans. But the leadership title also brings many behind-the-scenes responsibilities — and, as Guidry learned, some extra clout with the bosses, too.
“I don’t have a problem with you. Your team does.”
Former captain Ron Guidry, lodging a complaint about airplane food to then-Yankees owner George Steinbrenner
“There’s a certain pride and strut when you know that, ‘Hey, I’m the captain of the New York Yankees,'” Randolph said. “You feel responsibility in your preparation in spring training, in the offseason, to not just think about yourself, your teammates, how you can motivate them to be champions. It’s a 24/7 mentality that you need to carry, even when the season is over.”
It’s a role Judge has grown into through the years, particularly over the course of his historic 2022 season. The leadership transition started during his historic rookie season in 2017 — when he hit a rookie record 52 homers — as veteran teammates handed him the controls to the clubhouse Spotify account. Seven seasons into his career, Judge remains the Yankees unofficial DJ before and after games.
As Judge chased and ultimately surpassed Roger Maris’ American League single-season home run record last year, his influence transcended his playlist. His consistent pregame preparation inspired teammates. Through the ups and downs of the season, they looked to Judge for guidance — like him, never getting too high, never getting too low. By the end of the season, teammates were calling him the captain of the team, even if Judge didn’t formally hold the title yet. Still, when Hal Steinbrenner offered it to him in December, he was stunned.
Said Judge: “I was at a loss for words.”
Guidry and Randolph had also become the clubhouse choice for captain before Hal’s father officially anointed them. Both players had spent nearly a decade with the team and were the team’s longest-tenured players when they got the call.
“It’s a tremendous honor to get it solidified,” Randolph said, “but you grow into your leadership role. Everyone’s different, you can’t put a stamp on how someone did it. You have to do it the way you feel comfortable doing it. You gotta be yourself. People can smell when you’re not being authentic.”
For Jeter, Judge’s authenticity is self-evident.
“It’s not like you flip a switch and have to be someone else because you’ve been given this title,” Jeter said. “I would assume he’s been handling himself like a captain up until this point, which is why they named him captain.”
The tradition of Yankees captain dates back to future Hall of Famer Clark Griffith, who held the title from 1903 to 1905, though the role was left unfilled for nearly 40 years following the untimely retirement of Gehrig in 1939, due to ALS. Guidry learned what the captaincy means by watching Munson, the first player to take the mantle after Gehrig. Munson served as captain of the Yankees from 1976 to 1979, until a plane crash took his life. Guidry debuted for the Yankees in 1975 and spent the first four years of his career around the catcher.
“He didn’t have to tell you how to be a leader,” Guidry said. “If you’re on a team and you have a captain, you just watch how he performs the task of being a captain. When he speaks, what he says, when he picks the time, does he leave you alone, does he take you off on the side? Does he call a team meeting or leave the team alone?”
During one winning streak, Guidry remembers players in the Yankees clubhouse getting excited, but Munson immediately threw water on the fire — telling the group not to get too “slap happy.”
“What are you gonna say when you go into a five-game losing streak?” Munson told the clubhouse.
Said Guidry: “It would bring us right down to being level-headed again. It took 15 seconds, but those 15 seconds had a lot of weight behind it.”
Munson’s biggest impact, according to Guidry, came in 1978, when the Yankees found themselves 14 games behind the Boston Red Sox for first place at the All-Star break. New York was struggling with injuries and didn’t have many of its best players on the field throughout the early part of the season.
“He kept us all together,” Guidry said. “We knew we were good, but what was going on was not working for us. It seemed like everything was against us. But all of a sudden, you keep playing and you keep plugging away and then all of sudden, you rip off five, six, seven games in a row.”
The Yankees would eventually win the World Series after climbing all the way back in the division, then beating Boston in the AL East tiebreaker game on a go-ahead home run from Bucky Dent.
“He told us to be patient with everything, and it all came true,” Guidry said. “He always picked the right time to bring it out. He made you feel like you were gonna win. So when I became the captain with Willie, I knew what I needed to do.”
Guidry and Randolph said being a sounding board was among their most important responsibilities. That meant listening to teammates vent about their frustrations on the field, and sometimes serving as an intermediary between players and management.
But the responsibilities extend beyond the ballpark, as Yankees fans look to the captain as a role model in the community. Guidry said he was always careful about where he went because he did not want to get bad press for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He avoided downtown Manhattan so he didn’t get mobbed by fans, but when he encountered them, he tried to keep negative thoughts to himself.
“Sometimes you have to bite your tongue because people are really disgruntled when the team isn’t doing well,” Guidry said. “They have something to say and what they’re saying is not something you want to hear. You can’t get into an argument with them because if somebody snaps a picture and it gets out, then what you’ve been preaching in the clubhouse, you’re a hypocrite doing the opposite.”
Randolph always thought about how he carried himself — from his body language on the field and in the streets, to his choice of words.
“You have to embody all the cliches,” Randolph said. “Take things day by day, stay even keel. But it has to be natural.”
JUDGE KNOWS HE has a lot to live up to.
“I look back at the list of Thurman Munson, Lou Gehrig, Ron Guidry, Willie Randolph, Derek Jeter, Don Mattingly,” Judge said. “That’s a pretty good list right there.”
Judge often gets compared to Jeter for the way he interacts with the media, rarely giving a quote that could ruffle someone the wrong way or cause controversy. Beyond that, Jeter sees similarities between himself and his successor.
“In terms of mindset and what’s most important in terms of winning, he has that same mindset.”
Jeter said he hasn’t been around the team enough to make further comparisons. Instead, the Hall of Fame shortstop pointed to the current Yankees clubhouse for proof Judge can handle the job.
“Talk to his teammates, talk to his coaches. talk to his manager,” Jeter said. “I mean, [manager Aaron Boone] spoke for what? Thirty-five minutes [at the press conference]? You listen to everyone speak about him and that tells you all you need to know.”
Jeter made a point to remind Judge the title isn’t just an ego boost. It’s a responsibility.
“Yankee fans are big on history and tradition,” Jeter said. “It’s not a title that’s thrown around too lightly.”
Judge takes the newfound weight on his shoulders seriously.
“Not only great players, but great ambassadors of the game and great ambassadors of the New York Yankees,” Judge said. “This is an incredible honor I don’t take lightly.”
And if he needs any advice, say on how to handle complaints about airplane food?
“I’m here,” Guidry said. “Ask me.”
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Buster Olney
Gerrit Cole‘s season is over, now that he is headed for Tommy John surgery, and the New York Yankees will have to find a way to replicate the production of a Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, someone who is likely to one day make a speech on induction day in Cooperstown.
But this is not a case of a team being blindsided by an injury. Past injuries are the most predictive indicators for future injuries, and after Cole missed nearly the first three months of last season with nerve inflammation in his right elbow, the Yankees knew the chances of losing him were heightened. Their handling of his contract situation last fall was a strong indicator of the uncertainty around Cole.
The pitcher and his agent, Scott Boras, opted out of the last four years of his contract, while asking that the Yankees exercise a $36 million option for the 2029 season, effectively adding a fifth year to his four-year, $144 million deal. Owner Hal Steinbrenner and GM Brian Cashman declined to do so, firmly holding the line, and days later, Cole returned to the Yankees without any augmentation of his contract. While the Yankees hoped Cole’s elbow would remain functional, as Masahiro Tanaka’s elbow did following a diagnosis of a partially torn ligament in 2014, they weren’t willing to bet another $36 million on it.
But that doesn’t help them very much right now, when they have lost two starting pitchers to significant arm injuries: Before Cole went down, Luis Gil — the American League Rookie of the Year last season — suffered a lat strain this spring that will keep him sidelined for much of the 2025 season. Max Fried, signed to a $218 million contract over the winter to improve a good rotation, will now be the de facto ace, in front of right-handers Clarke Schmidt and left-hander Carlos Rodon. A month ago, there was a lot of speculation about whether Marcus Stroman would be traded, given his standing as the sixth starter behind a five-man rotation, and now Stroman is needed as the No. 4 starter.
Cashman’s habit is to be patient — to weigh internal solutions before diving into another free agent signing or trade. When Cole was sidelined last spring, the Yankees thought Will Warren might step into his spot in the rotation, and instead, Gil surprisingly emerged to fill in for Cole and was one of the league’s best starting pitchers in the first half.
This year, Warren is having a very good spring, having allowed just two hits and a run in eight innings of work, with two walks and 11 strikeouts. Warren, an eighth-round pick out of Southeast Louisiana in 2021, is the front-runner to move into the Yankees’ rotation.
Just as the Yankees continue to weigh market options for hitting help while Giancarlo Stanton is attempting to work his way back from elbow trouble, they will consider free agent possibilities such as veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson. The Yankees paid for insurance on Cole’s contract, and so they will recoup some portion of the salary they owe him; typically, that rate is about 75%. His contract still counts against their competitive balance tax total, but the insurance money will significantly offset the luxury tax they will have to pay for the addition of any replacement: The Yankees are taxed dollar for dollar, 100%, for any additional player salaries they take on. A new $5 million player costs the Yankees $10 million.
Eventually, their best alternatives, if needed, could be through the trade market, and maybe that turns out to be the Miami Marlins‘ Sandy Alcantara, the 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner who is back after an elbow reconstruction. Under the terms of a deal he signed with the Marlins early in his career, Alcantara is making $17.3 million this year and $17.3 million next season, and there is a $21 million option in his deal for 2027.
The Marlins are not expected to contend this year and have been in a cost-cutting mode since Peter Bendix took over the team’s baseball operations after the 2023 season. Last year, the Marlins demonstrated a willingness to deal very early in the season, when they swapped batting champion Luis Arraez to the San Diego Padres in the first week of May.
But the price of a trade in April or May is usually set by the team dealing away a star, and the Yankees would have to pay a big price in prospects in the spring after a rough year for their farm system, which is generally regarded as thin by other teams and ranked No. 21 in Kiley McDaniel’s preseason system rankings. Additionally, the Yankees would presumably compete against other teams if and when the Marlins look to trade Alcantara, leaving them at the same disadvantage they faced when trying to pry Garrett Crochet away from the Chicago White Sox — before Chicago dealt him to the Boston Red Sox.
Over the course of the summer, Gil could return from the injured list, and other pitchers could emerge on the trade market as some teams drift out of contention. If the Toronto Blue Jays struggle in the first half, they could be a key source for all kinds of needs, including starting pitchers. Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt and Max Scherzer might all draw interest if Toronto ever looks to rebuild and, in the Yankees’ case, is willing to deal within the division.
One or more National League West teams could end up feeding the trade market. The Padres enter this season with high expectations after nearly knocking out the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer, but if San Diego drifts behind in the playoff race, it holds two of the best impending free agents, Dylan Cease and former Yankee Michael King. Similarly, the San Francisco Giants have veteran Robbie Ray, who is under contract for $25 million this year and next, and the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ Zac Gallen will become eligible for free agency in the fall.
Likewise, in the AL West, the Mariners have so far clung to their starting pitchers, like Luis Castillo, but that could change if Seattle sinks in the standings. The Astros demonstrated their willingness to be aggressive with players nearing free agency with their trade of outfielder Kyle Tucker, and if Houston hovers around .500, it could flip Framber Valdez into the market — with his years of postseason experience attractive to contenders.
The pitching market could be flush with options in a few months. And the Yankees might wait until then to make a move to cover for Cole’s absence.
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Jorge Castillo
New York Yankees right-hander Gerrit Cole will undergo Tommy John surgery, the team announced Monday, ending his 2025 season before it began and leaving the club staggering from another blow as it prepares to defend its American League pennant.
The decision to have the surgery, which will sideline Cole for the 2025 season and at least part of the 2026 season, was made after seeking a second opinion from Dr. Neal ElAttrache on Monday. Cole will undergo the procedure Tuesday at the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles. In a statement, the club said that “further updates will occur post surgery.”
Cole started two games this spring, giving up seven runs across six innings. On Thursday, he gave up six runs on five hits, including two home runs, over 2⅔ innings to the Minnesota Twins. He said he felt an “alarming” amount of pain that night into Friday morning, prompting him to notify the team and undergo imaging tests, which revealed a torn ulnar collateral ligament.
Cole, 34, went through the same series of stressful events a year ago: Elbow pain in mid-March, tests and opinions from doctors. But the result was different. Cole was diagnosed with nerve irritation and edema and, instead of surgery, he rested and rehabbed. He made his season debut on June 19 and pitched through the World Series without a setback.
In a statement he posted on Instagram later Monday, Cole said the surgery was a “necessary next step for my career,” adding that he has “a lot left to give, and I’m fully committed to the work ahead. I’ll attack my rehab every day and support the 2025 Yankees each step of the way. I love this game, I love competing, and I can’t wait to be back on the mound — stronger than ever.”
The ace logged 124 innings over 22 starts between the regular season and playoffs, tossing at least six innings in three of his five postseason outings. He then opted to alter his offseason throwing program by starting it earlier to continue his positive momentum. He said he was “in a really good spot” compared to other years at the start of camp.
But less than a month later, his season has been declared over.
Cole’s injury is the second major blow to the Yankees’ starting rotation this spring after Luis Gil, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year, sustained a lat strain that was expected to sideline him for at least three months.
Without the two right-handers, Max Fried, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt will top the Yankees’ starting rotation. Marcus Stroman, who was notably not expected to make the Opening Day rotation, is projected to slide into the No. 4 spot with Will Warren, a rookie who made his debut last season, and Carlos Carrasco, a soon-to-be-38-year-old veteran in camp as a non-roster invite, as the leading internal candidates to round out the quintet.
Other options in camp include right-hander Allan Winans, who has eight career starts on his résumé, and left-hander Brent Headrick, a starter in the minors who has never started a game in the majors.
The Yankees could also opt to sign a free agent — veterans Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn are among those available — or swing a trade for an established starter.
Cole, a six-time All-Star, won the 2023 AL Cy Young Award and was the runner-up two other seasons. He has tallied at least 200 innings in six of his 10 full seasons (not including last year and the COVID-shortened 2020 season). He is as close to an old-school frontline workhorse in his prime that exists in baseball. It’s why the Yankees chose to sign Cole, a lifelong Yankees fan, to a nine-year, $324 million deal with a no-trade clause in December 2019 — the largest contract given to a pitcher at the time.
The agreement included a player opt-out after last season that the Yankees could’ve voided by attaching another year and $36 million to the four years and $144 million remaining on his contract. Cole exercised the opt out, but he never became a free agent and didn’t receive the extra year. Instead, the two sides agreed to continue as if Cole didn’t opt out two days later, keeping him under contract through the 2028 season at $36 million per year.
The Yankees have insurance on Cole’s contract, which will allow them to recoup some money for the time he’s out.
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out seven over five impressive innings and Shohei Ohtani ripped a 118.5 mph double during the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ penultimate game of the spring schedule on Monday.
Yamamoto threw 75 pitches against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Camelback Ranch. His fastball touched 97 mph and four of the seven strikeouts came on his splitter. The Japanese right-hander gave up one run on four hits in his final spring training start, walking one as the Dodgers went on to win 6-2.
Yamamoto is scheduled to start the Dodgers’ regular-season opener against the Chicago Cubs in Tokyo on March 18. Ohtani is expected to be the designated hitter.
Ohtani’s third extra-base hit of the spring came in the first inning and the reigning National League MVP jogged into second base for the easy double. He grounded out in the second and struck out in the fourth.
Ohtani is 6 of 17 this spring (.353) with two doubles and a homer. The 30-year-old is trying to bounce back from offseason shoulder surgery.
Rookie right-hander Roki Sasaki is scheduled to start the final spring training game for the Dodgers on Tuesday. He’s expected to start the second Dodgers-Cubs game in Japan on March 19.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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