Living the Yankee dream …
by Kristina Gabalski
Aaron Patella RyanThis baseball season, Aaron Patella Ryan gets to do something many people dream about: Suiting up in Yankee pinstripes and heading out onto the field at Yankee Stadium.
The 23-year old son of Keith and Francine Patella Ryan is working as one of three bat boys who cover the home team dugout during all games at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
“I did a double-take,” Aaron says, “the first time I put on the pinstripes. I’ve always had a love for the Yankees, a devotion to the Yankees.”
A 2008 graduate of McQuaid Jesuit and 2012 graduate of Iona College, Aaron says a college friend named Matt – who was already working as a Yankee bat boy, and whose father owns a business that moves equipment for sports teams including the Yankees – recommended him for the position.
“It’s a chain of knowing people,” Aaron says, about getting the bat boy job, “I’m lucky I knew Matt.”
He maintains a second job to keep busy when he’s not working at home Yankee games and to help “keep my perspective,” he says.
The job of a bat boy is “not always glamorous,” Aaron notes, but adds that the perks always outweigh any of the more tedious duties he has to perform.
The Yankees notified Aaron in January that he had been chosen as their new bat boy. He left for spring training in Tampa, Florida, the day after the Super Bowl.
He says he literally “got my training at spring training,” and had a chance to get to know the players including young rookies coming up through the system. The players also had the opportunity to get to know Aaron’s face before the regular season got underway.
The friend who helped Aaron get the bat boy job also helped him learn the ropes and also offered some insightful, practical advice – “speak only when spoken to,” and, “… don’t get comfortable.”
The 2013 spring training camp lasted seven weeks and was larger than usual, Aaron explains, with 85 guys. In addition to bat boy duties, Aaron helped to set up the clubhouse, prepare lockers, do laundry and clean cleats – lots and lots of them.
“With 85 guys, it was cleats, cleats, cleats,” Aaron says. One day, he spent four hours straight at the task.
Now that the regular season is in full swing, Aaron can be found during home games in the Yankee dugout, working either as a ball boy – grabbing foul balls that end up behind home plate and keeping the home plate umpire supplied with balls; or as bat boy – assisting players when the Yankees are up to bat.
A third bat boy is stationed along the first base line to help fetch foul balls as well as warm-up the outfielders.
Aaron says he has taken that job on a few occasions, giving him the opportunity to warm-up Ichiro Suzuki in right field. It’s also great to, “ … see Yankee Stadium from the first base line,” he says.
As a bat boy, Aaron explains he has worked hard to memorize which bat belongs to which player and where each player keeps his bat – Robinson Cano’s, for example, is in the back right-hand corner of the bat bucket.
Also, if a player gets a hit, Aaron will run to retrieve his equipment.
“If Cano singles, I need to get his elbow and shin guards from the first base coach and put them back in their proper slot in the dugout,” Aaron says.
He also studies how each player likes to prep his bat, something that makes a big difference to players if they crack or break a bat. Aaron can have whatever the player needs ready quickly because the player does not have much time if his bat needs to be replaced.
Players like Cano tell Aaron they appreciate his efforts and during a recent game, when Cano cracked a bat, Aaron brought him a new one along with the items Cano needs to prep his bat.
Cano then promptly hit a home run, which Aaron says reminded him of the famous final home run scene in “The Natural,” when Robert Redford’s character breaks a treasured bat and then asks the bat boy to pick him a new one. The result is the movie’s climactic, out-of-the-park, light smashing homer.
“I’ve always dreamed of a moment like that,” Aaron says.
He enjoys “going out for batting practice before games” when he can shag fly balls in the outfield. The moments before the start of the game, when players are entering the dugout, are also special, Aaron says, because of the camaraderie between team members, each of whom have their own special handshake.
He says he’s very thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the Yankees organization and strives each game to follow his friend’s advice and not “get comfortable” – to pull his weight, sharpen his skills and earn the team’s trust.
Aaron’s parents say they are very proud of him becoming a bat boy for the NY Yankees.
“Frankly, we are most proud of his attitude towards his position,” Keith and Francine say. “From the first, he said he would make sure that he did nothing to hurt the image of his friend that got him this job. He takes being an employee of the New York Yankees very seriously. Not unlike those baseball players who aspire to wear the pinstripes and speak of it when that happens for them, our son knows the importance of how he handles himself in this uniform. He knows his job and we know he will do everything he can to do it in the best way possible.”
Aaron’s all-time favorite player – shortstop Derek Jeter – is someone he now gets to rub elbows with on a regular basis.
“When I met him it was the best feeling in the world,” Aaron says.
Jeter, who is expected to stay on the disabled list until after the All-Star break while his re-fractured ankle heals, has been at the stadium for recent home stands, Aaron says.
“He lightens up the mood,” just by walking in the clubhouse, Aaron observes, and adds that the Yankee team captain always personally acknowledges him – whether it’s with a pat on the shoulder, or with a “fist-pound.”
“He doesn’t have to do that,” Aaron says. “He’s the definition of a Yankee – classy.”
Aaron says he has gotten to know pitcher CC Sabathia, who, he says, is a really nice guy, as well as up-and-comers like pitcher Preston Claiborne – who spent time in Rochester last summer playing for the Yankees Triple-A affiliate, Scranton Wilkes-Barre. The team played a number of home games in Rochester while their stadium in Pennsylvania underwent renovations. He also got to see well-known “old-timers” like David Wells, Goose Gossage, Lee Mazzilli, Reggie Jackson and Stump Merrill at spring training.
Aaron says he has felt his whole life that he would some day be a part of the NY Yankee organization. “We’ll see where this takes me,” he says. “My goal is to work hard enough, and do well enough making the players happy and the clubhouse guys happy that I could become a clubhouse guy.”
He credits a beloved uncle (and Yankee fan) who died of leukemia before Aaron began wearing the pinstripes as well as his grandmother – who died seven years to the day before Aaron got the bat boy job (January 22), for encouraging and inspiring him.
“They’re looking out for me,” he adds.
