Aaron Boone Reportedly Candidate for Yankees Manager Job

Aaron Boone is a candidate for the New York Yankees' managerial vacancy, ESPN.com's Buster Olney reported Thursday.

According to Olney, the Yankees haven't yet formally scheduled an interview with Boone, who played for the team in the second half of the 2003 season.

Boone famously hit the pennant-clinching home run in the 2003 American League Championship Series for New York.

His season-ending knee injury in January 2004 then prompted the Yankees to acquire Alex Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers in February of that year.

The 44-year-old is a somewhat surprising inclusion in the Yankees' managerial search since he has yet to coach in a formal capacity for an MLB team. Upon retiring after the 2009 season, Boone joined ESPN as an analyst.

While he played 12 years in the majors, taking over as the Yankees' manager—arguably the most scrutinized job in baseball—would present an entirely different challenge.

Joe Girardi, in comparison, was the team's bench coach in 2005 and managed the Florida Marlins in 2006 before he replaced Joe Torre in New York in 2008.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Monday he'd be willing to hire a candidate who doesn't have past coaching experience but added the candidate would need to go above and beyond during the hiring process, per NJ Advance Media's Randy Miller:

"If somebody hasn't done it, they're going to have to be exceptional in other aspects for you to be willing to take a chance like that. There will be people that I interview that don't have any managerial experience in their background. It's a very diverse list of people that I have interest in talking with and so we'll see where it takes us ultimately."

The New York Daily News' Mike Mazzeo reported David Cone and John Flaherty are also interested in becoming the Yankees' next manager and have spoken to Cashman about the opportunity.