David Ross on following Alex Cora and Aaron Boone from the broadcast booth to the dugout
The ESPN analyst also touches on the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry.
On April 10, the Yankees and Red Sox meet at Fenway Park. Former Sox catcher David Ross will be part of the ESPN broadcast for that matchup, but if he ever decides to make the leap from the booth to a major league dugout, he’ll be following a path that has recently become well-trodden.
The two coaches in that newly reheated rivalry are both first-time managers who were sitting in his seat just a few years ago. Red Sox manager Alex Cora spent three years as a color analyst before joining the Houston Astros’ staff in 2016, while Aaron Boone worked onscreen and on the radio until the Yankees hired him to replace Joe Giardi.
Ross said he’s focused on the job at hand for now but hopes to get back into the game in some capacity when his kids are a little older. He knows Cora, Boone, and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts will let him pick their brains when the time comes.
“I’ve been blessed to have a lot of those good influences and guys I can bounce stuff off of if I ever do get an opportunity,” Ross said.
For now, he’s asked to make predictions, not pitching changes. Ross said the AL East will be a coin toss between the Sox and Yankees after their arms race in the offseason, with the outcome riding on the teams’ ability to stay healthy and their new managers’ response to the pressures of a grueling 162-game season. He gave the slight edge to his old club and sees New York grabbing the American League wild card spot.
“These prediction things, I never get these things right and I don’t understand them because I know how fickle baseball is and how any team can win on any given night,” Ross said. “They call me an expert but I don’t know that I am.”
The former Red Sox catcher won two World Series during his 15-year major league career, picking up a ring with Boston in 2013 and as a Chicago Cub in 2016. Ross hit a home run in his last game before retirement, the Game 7 that sealed Chicago’s championship. He knows the importance of team chemistry and said the successful clubs he’s played on have been loose in the locker room.
“It is a job, and you’re expected, especially in the big markets like Boston, you’re expected to come to work every day,” Ross said. “The team that exemplified that the most for me was the 2013 Boston team I was on. We had a lot of fun but when we stepped on the field we were all business and ready to work. You need to have that switch.”
Ross was at Fort Myers with the current Red Sox team this spring and said he saw that same atmosphere among the Boston players. He was impressed by Rafael Devers’s swing and size (“He’s a big, big, kid. I say kid, he’s a man. But a big human being.”) and forecasted big years from the second-year slugger and Xander Bogaerts. The Sox will need both to defend their back-to-back AL East titles against Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and the rest of the Yankees.
“Everyone brings their A-game when you’re the Yankees or the Red Sox and you got to be able to live up to the expectations and deal with the pressure of being the favorite,” Ross said. “Mentally, sometimes, some guys aren’t cut out for that.”
Ross noted one side effect of the offseason arms race: There should be someone new reaching for the check when each team goes out for dinner.
“David Price, J.D. [Martinez], those guys with the big contracts, they have to spring for the bill when it comes,” he laughed. “They happily do that, it’s kind of one of those fraternity things in baseball. The guy who makes the most money picks up the dinners and it’s cool when they invite guys out.”
