PHILADELPHIA (AP) Ruben Amaro Jr. had one of the best views in the house of a Boston Red Sox team on the brink of something special.
Amaro just wished he could have stuck around another season as first base coach to watch the Red Sox play in the World Series.
As he prepares to moonlight as an actor on the 1980-something sitcom ”The Goldbergs,” Amaro is keeping a close eye on his old ballclub.
”It’s tough to watch and I’m absolutely rooting for them,” Amaro said Thursday. ”I’d love to be a part of it. I still feel like a part of that family. You get close to the players, the people in the front office, the staff. I still email and text them regularly. No animosity toward the organization at all. Things have to change sometimes. It’s just unfortunate I’m not a part of it.”
Amaro was caught up in an organizational shake up after manager John Farrell was fired and several coaches were let go at the end of 2017. The Red Sox moved on with manager Alex Cora and they are halfway to a World Series championship. The Red Sox lead 2-0 with Game 3 Friday in Los Angeles. The Dodgers need a win to avoid an 0-3 deficit that no World Series team has ever recovered from.
Amaro said the difference between last season’s 93-win team and this season has been the acquisition of J.D. Martinez, who blossomed into an MVP candidate who helped Boston win a franchise-record 108 games.
”The one thing we did lack last year was a J.D. Martinez-type,” Amaro said. ”Alex has done a really nice job and they’ve responded real well to him so you have to give some kudos to him, too.”
Amaro spent this season coaching the New York Mets in his third season on the field after a lengthy career in Philadelphia. Amaro rose from team batboy in 1980-83 to playing for the Phillies for five seasons in the 1990s. He spent 10 seasons as assistant general manager and became GM once Pat Gillick retired after the Phillies won the 2008 World Series. Amaro was in charge when the Phillies won the 2009 NL pennant, three division titles and most wins in franchise history (102) in 2011. He was fired in 2015.
He’s considered a front office comeback.
”I itch at times to get that opportunity again. Don’t know if it will ever happen,” he said. ”I do have some interest in doing that. But now that I’m back on the field, you get that other itch to consider the possibility of doing some managing.”
The Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers are the only teams with managerial vacancies, a role coaching with the Red Sox got him closer to chasing.
”The important element of that was to get a much better understanding on the ground level of analytics and the role it plays in baseball,” Amaro said. ”There’s a lot of good people over there in that area that I got a chance to be around and be able to utilize their information for my job.”
Amaro may be rooting for the Red Sox over LA – but he’s ready for his close up in Hollywood.
It’s a familiar role: Amaro will again play his father, who spent 58 years in the game, most of them with the Phillies, on ”The Goldbergs.” Show creator Adam F. Goldberg attended William Penn Charter High School where Amaro Jr. was a star athlete, and 30 years later has been incorporated into the semi-autobiographical ABC show. Amaro was the captain of 1987 national champion Stanford baseball team while Goldberg was at Penn Charter. But stretching creative license, they are friends and attend school at the same time on the show. Amaro plays his father for the second time in Wednesday’s episode, ”Fiddler.”
Amaro Sr. died at 81 in 2017 after a long battle with cancer.
”Being able to pay homage is pretty special. My dad battled cancer for about 30 years and toward the end of his life he struggled with it,” Amaro said. ”It was neat for me to play … well, not to get too sappy about it, but it made me pretty emotional.”
He’s more prepared for a second act in the front office – just like he was on ”The Goldbergs.”
”It was a little easier the second time around. My first time I only had one line and it took 20 takes to get it,” he said, laughing.
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