Bob Boone, the catcher on the Philadelphia Phillies’ first World Series championship team, died Monday at 78, the Phillies announced, as the Associated Press reported. No cause of death was announced.
His son Bret announced the death on social media on Tuesday. “He was a man of great integrity. He was a great dad, husband, and patriarch. It was a privilege to call him my father,” Bret Boone wrote. “Baseball lost a great one today.” In a separate post, Bret called his father his mentor, his coach and his rock: “He taught me how to be a pro and more importantly, how to be a man.”
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Bob Boone Dies At 78 After 19 Seasons Behind The Plate
Boone played 19 major league seasons, and almost all of them were spent catching. Drafted by the Phillies in the sixth round out of Stanford in 1969 as a third baseman, he was converted to catcher in the minor leagues and went on to catch 2,225 games, a total only Ivan Rodriguez and Carlton Fisk have passed. He caught 1,095 games for Philadelphia alone, second in franchise history to Red Dooin, and in Kansas City he set the record for career games caught at 1,919.
The defence was the calling card. Boone won seven Gold Gloves, the first Phillies catcher ever to win one, in 1978 and 1979, and his last at 41 years old with the Royals in 1989. He made four All-Star teams, three with Philadelphia and one with the California Angels, and was added to the Phillies Wall of Fame in 2005.
The Catcher Behind The 1980 Phillies Title
The defining run came in 1980, when the Phillies won the first World Series in franchise history, beating the Kansas City Royals in six games. Boone led the Phillies with a .412 batting average in that Series, and he was behind the plate for the final out of Game 6, when Tug McGraw struck out Willie Wilson to clinch it.
His most replayed moment came minutes earlier in the same inning. Boone ran after Frank White’s foul pop near the dugout, the ball bounced off his mitt, and Pete Rose caught it for the out, a play that has run on Philadelphia highlight reels ever since. “Bob was an incredible player, teammate and family man,” the Phillies said in their statement. “We were proud to have him as part of the Phillies family during one of the most historic runs in team history.”
His teammates from that team led the tributes. “We played in the minors together where he gave up third base so I could play it, only to become one of the best catchers in baseball history,” Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt said. “Our lives and careers were intertwined, we pursued our Christian faith together, worked out together, and became world champions together.” Shortstop Larry Bowa called him “the backbone of our team,” and Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza posted that Boone’s play and mastery of catching inspired him to want to play the position.
Baseball’s First Three-Generation Family
Boone was the middle link in a family first that still frames his place in the game, as the AP’s full report sets out. His father, Ray Boone, played 13 major league seasons and was a two-time All-Star. His sons Bret and Aaron both played more than a decade in the majors, Bret a three-time All-Star and Aaron now the manager of the New York Yankees, who said his legacy is carried forward in Aaron’s leadership of the team. A third son, Matt, played in the minor leagues, and Bret’s son Jake works in the New York Mets’ front office after playing at Princeton, a fourth generation working in the game.
“I’m just so grateful that I had a dad that took us to work with him all the time,” Aaron Boone told MLB.com in 2023, recalling growing up at the ballpark while his father played. “It was a great way to grow up.”
From The Angels And Royals To The Manager’s Office
After 10 seasons in Philadelphia, Boone played seven with the California Angels, winning four more Gold Gloves, making another All-Star team and helping the Angels to two division titles. He went 10 for 22, a .455 average, with a home run and two RBIs against Boston in the 1986 American League Championship Series. He finished his playing career with two seasons in Kansas City.
The second career was long, too. Boone managed the Royals for three seasons and the Cincinnati Reds for three more, going 371-444 overall, and he managed Aaron during Aaron’s playing days in Cincinnati. He joined the Washington Nationals’ front office in 2005 and was there when Washington won the 2019 World Series, the first championship in that franchise’s history, before resigning in 2021. The Angels remembered him as their franchise leader in games caught, and the players’ association saluted his early leadership role in the union and his reputation as a principled voice for player rights in the 1970s and 1980s.
Boone is survived by his wife, Sue, and his sons. He was 78, 10 days short of his 79th birthday, and the game he spent a lifetime in, as a player, a manager, an executive and a father of major leaguers, spent Tuesday saying the same thing his son said first: baseball lost a great one.
