MLB Network analyst Sean Casey received a phone call last Thursday from his best friend in baseball.
He and Yankees manager Aaron Boone talk all the time, but this call was business.
Boone allured that the Yankees were planning to fire hitting coach Dillon Lawson. He wanted to talk Casey into being the replacement.
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Casey has received a lot of calls like since he ended his 12-year playing career in 2008 as a three-time All-Star first baseman who hit .302 with three 20-plus homer seasons. He always said no to hitting coach offers in the past. He was content working part-time for the MLB Network and spending time with his family back home in Upper St. Clair, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh.
This was different.
“It was the Yankees,” Casey said Tuesday in a radio interview with WDVE in Pittsburgh. “It was Boonie.”
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Lawson was fired after the Yankees lost to the Cubs last Sunday to go into the All-Star break with the third-lowest batting average in the majors.
Casey was hired on Monday and will take over beginning Friday when the Yankees return from a four-day break for a weekend series in Colorado.
“It got going so fast,” Casey said. “The next thing I know, I was talking to Brian Cashman, and they let their hitting coach go and I was hired.”
Casey will talk to Yankees reporters in a Zoom call on Wednesday.
A day early, Casey’s weekly spot with the WDVE morning team lasted 15 minutes and covered a lot of ground.
Here are highlights:
Casey is planning a rah-rah speech to Yankees hitters before Friday’s game against the Rockies.
“I wake up at four in the morning like, ‘Here’s a good speech to give them!’ I’ve got like seven speeches in my notes what I want to say to these guys. I think the greatest thing that I feel as a hitting coach coming into the situation is I can look at these guys honestly and say, ‘Hey, listen, I’ve…
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