Bob Boone, the most accomplished member of a three-generation baseball family that's impacted Major League Baseball for the past 78 years, has died, according to his son, Bret.
Boone was 78.
The son of All-Star infielder Ray Boone and the father of current New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone and two-time All-Star Bret Boone, Bob Boone was a four-time All-Star catcher and star of the Philadelphia Phillies' 1980 World Series champion team, the first in club history to win the Fall Classic.
He played 19 years in the major leagues, moving on from Philadelphia to serve as the fulcrum of a California Angels squad that twice came within a game of the World Series, in 1982 and 1986. He finished his career with two seasons in Kansas City, retiring in 1990.
Yet the family's story was only reaching its midpoint.
After serving three years in the military during World War II, Ray Boone debuted on the last Cleveland team to win a World Series, in 1948. He enjoyed a 13-year career that included All-Star appearances in 1954 and '56. Yet just one month after Cleveland won the 1948 World Series, Ray's legacy would continue: Bob Boone was born in San Diego.
Boone eventually attended Stanford and was a sixth-round pick of the Phillies in 1969. He'd reach the majors at 24, in 1972.
Just two months before the Phillies drafted him, Boone's wife, Susan, gave birth to Bret Boone and Aaron would follow in 1973. Like their dad, Bret and Aaron were born in San Diego County and eventually grew up two hours north in Orange County as their dad became a veteran beacon for the Angels.
He served as a manager for the Kansas City Royals from 1995-97 and the Cincinnati Reds from 2001-2003, managing Aaron for nearly three seasons in Cincinnati before the club traded him to the Yankees, where he'd hit his notorious pennant-winning home run in ALCS Game 7 later that year.
At the 2002 All-Star Game in Miwaukee, the generations were united in most glorious fashion, Aaron representing the Reds as an NL All-Star, Bret repping the AL as a Seattle Mariner, both posing for photos with Bob and Ray, the first family to send three generations to a Midsummer Classic.
Boone would continue in baseball, working in various capacities as a scout and special assistant, most notably in recent years with the Washington Nationals, earning a championship ring for their World Series title in 2019. Meanwhile, Aaron was named Yankees manager in 2018 and even as Bob stepped away from the game, he and Susan would watch Aaron's Yankees play from their home in California, according to Scott Miller's 2025 book Skipper.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bob Boone, 3-time All-Star and father of Yankees manager Aaron Boone, dies at 78
