The New York Yankees’ last few days have been turbulent, to say the least. Their win-loss record has fell almost to .500 levels, and currently stands at 41-39, they are in fourth place of the American League East division, and they are way out of the playoff picture as of now. The week has been so crazy and tense that manager Aaron Boone, general manager Brian Cashman, and owner Hal Steinbrenner have all had to speak with reporters to try and calm down the waters some.
As it turns out, the Yankees’ players also held a meeting earlier this week, with no Boone or coaches. Just them. That information was revealed by Steinbrenner during a Zoom call with reporters on Thursday.
However, Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge offered some details of the meeting on Friday. He said he was responsible for calling it, and he explained that there was “a lot of emotion†shared between teammates.
The Yankees needed to say some things to each other
“There were some things on my mind, some things I’ve been seeing over the course of the year,” Judge said. “Usually around the All-Star break is a time where you have a meeting and you address things going in the second half. I felt there were some things that couldn’t wait until the All-Star break to get brought up.”
The meeting was on Tuesday, before an 11-5 win against the Los Angeles Angels. It was a chance for players “to be honest with each other,†per Judge.
Of course, the Yankees’ star didn’t want to reveal what exactly was covered at the meeting, but he said that, “sure enough, we go out there and score a lot of runs, having better at-bats and overall better quality of games. I think it’s going to help us in the long run.”
Reliever Darren O’Day said: “I think it’s a sign of a team that cares. It’s easy for us to just kind of go through the day and not really make a big deal out of it. Everybody comes here to New York to win. It was a great time to meet. It was very productive.”