Yankees’ Aaron Boone, Nick Swisher get 100% real on their alma maters USC, Ohio State baseball

The New York Yankees had a disappointing season last year as they finished in fourth place in the AL East. The division was absolutely loaded, and the Yankees still did finish with a winning record, but with the talent they have, they should be making the playoffs. That is the goal in 2024, and Aaron Boone and Nick Swisher appeared on MLB Network on Tuesday, but it wasn’t to talk about the Yankees. It was to talk USC and Ohio State baseball.

USC and Ohio State baseball will be playing at the Desert Invitational this year, so Aaron Boone and Nick Swisher came on the show to discuss their alma maters. Before they were ever with the Yankees, Boone went to USC and Swisher went to Ohio State.

“Well you know what they say they say you’re a Bruin for four years, you’re a Trojan for life and I find that rings very true,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I’m really excited. Look, I’m so excited about Andy Stankiewicz going into his second year now as head coach. I think he is absolutely the right person at the right time to help lead us back to where we should be. I mean, frankly, it’s been, you know, we’ve had our moments over the last you know, 15-20 years but not certainly what we expect at SC and I think Andy is is the right guy to kind of lead this. They did a lot of really good things last year where they probably didn’t have the most talented roster last year and still I actually think they got robbed not getting into the tournament, but that’s a whole other debate, but I’m excited for him and the season. They’re redoing Dedeaux Field. So they’re going to be not being able to play at home which is going to be a challenge for the next year or two, but hopefully beyond that, it’s going to be bigger and better than ever.”

USC and Ohio State will do battle on Sunday in Phoenix. Yankees legend Nick Swisher is very excited about the future that his Buckeyes have.

“I mean, listen, if you’re if you’re a northern school player, you know how exciting the first trip of the season is,” The former Yankees star said. “First five weeks of the season for us are on the road 20 of our first, what, 50 games we play are going to be on the road. So it’s definitely going to be a challenge for us. But listen, us too. We have a head coach that’s coming in and a manager it’s coming in his second year as well in Bill Mosiello and I think you remember him from TCU. He knows a lot about the major league game as well. Obviously he was Mike Trout’s manager in the minor leagues for a couple years. I think he’s managed over 100 Major League Baseball players and the thing that I really, really appreciate about what he’s doing with our program is he’s walking into these homes of these kids and he’s looking them square in the eye and telling them, ‘If you want to play in the big leagues, Ohio State is where you need to be.’ For someone like me, who has my name written all over that outfield. And now with the NIL money going up as well. I just think in general for all of us at Ohio State, all of us alums, you know, baseball hasn’t really been, you know, the top of where we are at our university. So I think for all of us, we want to get ourselves back to that. You know, we’ve had some notable guys drafted over the last couple years, we got some guys knocking on the door of getting themselves onto some big league teams. And with Mosiello, and his passion and his commitment to Ohio State University, I could not be more excited where he’s about to take this program.”

Both Ohio State and USC have second year head coaches this season, and Boone and Swisher are both hoping to see their teams make the NCAA Tournament. They are also hoping to see the Yankees make a postseason run.