One of baseball’s four royal families has just added another jewel to its crown. Aaron Boone, brother of Bret, son of Bob and grandson of Ray, has introduced pinstripes to the Boone family coat of arms

This Boone was named manager of the Yankees last Friday, as strange as it may seem for a television analyst who has never sat in a dugout, major league or minor, as a manager or even a coach.

In his new position, he is the latest manager to become part of the trend that has consumed Major League Baseball. The game has been overrun by analytics, and they have prompted general managers, with ownership consent, if not encouragement, to assume control of the dugout as well as the front office.

The day may be near, if it isn’t here already, when the general manager fills out the lineup card in his office and sends it down to the manager in his office. To be sure, this is not Billy Martin’s baseball.

The Yankees epitomized the new era in their search for a manager to replace Joe Girardi, who was a victim of this new day. It mattered not that he managed a young, inexperienced team with an undermanned starting rotation not only to the playoffs but also to one game from the World Series. His contract was allowed to expire because the Yankees wanted a manager whom General Manager Brian Cashman could control.

After Cashman fired Girardi he cited Girardi’s lack of communication and connection with the clubhouse. A club executive implied a similar problem. When I suggested that maybe the Yankees should have fired Cashman instead of Girardi, the executive responded, “You weren’t in the clubhouse.”

The Yankees obviously were well rehearsed with their reason for firing Girardi so they could hire a malleable manager instead.

Consider the roster of candidates they interviewed for the job and also consider the time they took in naming the new manager.

They interviewed six men. Two of them, Boone and Carlos Beltran, had no managing or coaching experience on any level. The Beltran interview came so soon after he played his last game as a player that he hardly had time to remove his wrist bands.

Rob Thomson, Chris Woodward and Hensley Meulens had coaching experience. Eric Wedge was the only candidate with managing experiences. It was not known how Cashman chose the candidates.

Also not known was why the Yankees took so long to choose the new manager. Rarely have teams gone into December without a manager.

The Tampa Bay Rays made Kevin Cash their manager Dec. 5, 2014, but they didn’t know they needed a new manager until Joe Maddon exercised the opt-out provisions in his contract Oct. 24. San Francisco named Frank Robinson manager even later, Jan. 24, 1980, but Dave Bristol had been the Giants’ manager until they fired him Dec. 9.

Usually, though, clubs want to get the new man on board as soon as possible so he can participate in planning for the ensuing season. However, with the general manager occupying the center seat at the large table in the conference room surrounded by his metrics men, there might not even be a seat for the manager.

Despite these game-changing developments, Boone was ready and eager to jump ship and leave ESPN behind.

“I know it’s always been in his mind,” Bob Boone, Aaron’s father and a former manager himself, said when I asked him about his son’s desire to manage. “I think he’s always wanted to manage. He wanted to manage when I was managing.”

Bob Boone managed the Royals and the Reds for two and a half years each. Currently a Nationals vice president and assistant general manager, he has straddled the game as it had been played forever and the new analytics age.

“Older managers want to manage, but they are having a tougher time. Older guys are having a tougher time,” Boone said in a telephone interview last week. “There’s a lot of new stuff. Older guys will use it because they want to manage.” Meanwhile, Boone added, “We’re seeing younger guys getting the jobs, not the retreads of the past.”

Aaron Boone was the sixth new manager hired this off-season. His and the others’ age on opening day (date hired in parentheses):

• Gabe Kapler              Phillies           42        (Nov. 2)
• Alex Cora                   Red Sox         42        (Nov. 6)
• Mickey Callaway      Mets                42        (Oct. 22)
• Aaron Boone             Yankees         44        (Dec. 1)
• Dave Martinez          Nationals       53        (Oct. 20)
• Ron Gardenhire       Tigers             60        (Oct. 20)

Gardenhire is the only one of the group who has been a major league manager, having directed the Twins for 13 seasons, 2002-14. He is the lone exception in the group of new 2018 managers, both in age and experience. It remains to be seen how Gardenhire will manage under Al Avila, the 59-year-old general manager.

“It’s sort of a team management,” Boone said. “In this new wave it’s the way ownership wants it. It’s a matter of fact this is how we are going to play the game. The manager, general manager, scouts. It’s the wave of the future.”

If much of the decision-making process is taken out of the managers’ hands, it would seem general managers would have less reason to fire them if they don’t win. General managers, on the other hand, will always find reasons to fire managers, especially if the general manager’s job could be on the line.

As Boone noted, three teams this year fired their managers even though the teams won 90 games and played in the post-season.

Is that a job a father wants for his son?

“I think Aaron will handle that spectacularly,” Boone said. “His job at ESPN was getting to know all of the players. He doesn’t have managerial experiences, but he knows the players. He’s known them for six years.”

Boone cited another reason he thought Aaron would succeed as a manager – his reaction to a knee injury he suffered playing in a basketball game that he was prohibited from playing under terms of a $5.75 million contract he had just signed with the Yankees for the 2004 season.

“When he hurt his knee,” the elder Boone related, “he called me and asked what he should do. There was no other way to do it. He finished working out and jumped into a basketball game and hurt his knee.”

Instead of concocting a fanciful tale, as players usually do in those situations, Boone told the Yankees how he tore his knee ligament.

“It cost him $5 million,” the father said. “I’m proud of Aaron for doing it.”

BLAME NEW MANAGER FOR A-ROD?

There is another part to the Boone story that is worth retelling.

Boone’s injury forced the Yankees to find a third baseman and led directly to their acquisition of Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers. The Yankees might very well have wound up with Rodriguez at some point anyhow, but there was an urgency as the 2004 season approached and the Rangers provided the solution.

Three years earlier Texas had signed Rodriguez as a free agent, giving him a record-breaking $252 million for 10 years. But now the Rangers were about $75 million, 270 losses, three last-place finishes and an average of 33 games from first place into the contract, and it wasn’t looking too good.

Trade Rodriguez? Excuse us for not looking overly eager to do that, but where do we sign? So the Yankees sent the Rangers Alfonso Soriano and they got their third baseman. What the Yankees didn’t know was they were also getting Rodriguez’s steroids habit and the lies that accompanied it.

When Rodriguez exercised the opt-out clause in his contract after the 2007 season, the Yankees didn’t take advantage of the gift he was giving them. Instead, he suckered Hank Steinbrenner, then but not for long the team’s managing partner, into giving him a 10-year, $275 million contract, all because Aaron Boone had to play a pickup game of basketball.