Yankees manager Aaron Boone grew up in clubhouses, following around his father, Bob, who caught 19 seasons in the bigs. When Aaron reached the Majors, it was as a member of the Cincinnati Reds, an organization that historically has been known to put on one of the biggest shows in the country for the season’s curtain-raising.

Boone made his big league debut in 1997, but the next year was the first time he would get to enjoy Opening Day as a Major Leaguer. Playing against the Padres, who would win the National League pennant in 1998 before falling to arguably the greatest Yankees team of all time, Boone’s Reds were pasted, 10-2. “They beat the brakes off us that day,” Boone recalled.

But the in-game memories were hardly on the skipper’s mind when asked to recall his first time experiencing the fanfare and pomp of Opening Day.

“I remember Marge Schott having a giant elephant on the field, and it taking a giant ‘movement’ right on the turf, right in front of the dugout, about 15 minutes before the game,” Boone said, recalling the late Reds owner’s characteristically unconventional choices. “That actually helped settle me down.”

As columnist Paul Daugherty wrote in the next day’s Cincinnati Enquirer, “Opening Daze 1998 began with a zoo elephant standing in front of the Reds' dugout and pooping into a plastic garbage bag. If you are a local baseball fan and a believer in metaphors, that wasn’t a good one.” Over at The Cincinnati Post, the subhead to the story about Pokey Reese’s four errors announced, “Even elephant helper had a better opener.”

Reese would eventually win two Gold Gloves, and the 1998 Reds would have better days than the opener. But when you’re one game into a 162-game journey, it’s easy to look for metaphors, to jump to conclusions. And during the first portion of the 2024 season, Yankees fans saw plenty of interesting omens.

“We feel like we have a lot to prove this year, coming off the season where we didn’t make the playoffs,” Boone said on March 25 in Mexico City, where the Yankees played their final two exhibition games. “We expect to be in the playoffs and competing for a championship every day, and that’s been the mindset of the players.

“It’s a very focused group, and [we’re] ready to go compete for a championship starting Thursday.”

The first two weeks of the season had a way of testing that cool resolve. A hot start got things shaking, and also rattling and rolling -- literally. The tough memories of a 2023 season that ended with the Yankees in fourth place were eclipsed around the same time that the moon passed directly in front of the sun. There were new uniforms, new players and new ways to win. Clearly, the screenwriter for the 2024 Yankees season was having some fun, right from the jump.

***

Boone has been managing the Yankees since 2018, which meant that this past March 28, he gave a barely changed version of the same quote for the seventh time.

“I just think it’s a day to be celebrated, to be appreciated,” he said in 2018, before his first game as a big league skipper. “A little step back to just appreciate getting to put on a Major league uniform.”

This year’s rendition? Boone got to give it twice, with the team opening on the road and then enjoying the festivities at home eight days later.

“It’s a big deal, one that you try and make sure everyone appreciates,” he said in Houston. “What an honor and a privilege it is to wear a Major League uniform on Opening Day. I try to never take that day lightly.”

“This is a day to be celebrated,” he repeated on April 5. “I think that we all feel very blessed to be able to put on this uniform and go represent the Yankees on Opening Day.”

It’s hard to predict the future, with all the variables and uncertainties of our mischievous world. One thing that you can bank on, though, even before next year’s MLB schedule is released: Aaron Boone will say that Opening Day 2025 is a time to be celebrated.

The manager is hardly alone in his affection for the one day on the baseball calendar when everyone starts in first place, when no one has failed at anything yet.

“It almost feels like what you’re watching is brighter,” Alex Verdugo said the day after his first game as a Yankee. “Like, the scene was just brighter. It’s like looking from a lens of low quality to high definition. And that’s how I felt on Opening Day, where you’re just so on adrenaline. You wake up early, and it’s like, you don’t care about how your body feels. Your body feels great.”

Verdugo played a big role in the team’s dramatic, 5-4 Opening Day victory in Houston, contributing the go-ahead RBI and a remarkable defensive play. It took a little while to get there, though, as the season’s first few innings seemed more akin to the frustration of 2023. Nestor Cortes, starting in place of an injured Gerrit Cole, got roughed up in the first inning, allowing three runs. Nick Burdi -- signed to a Minor League deal in December 2023, but on the big league club after wowing coaches as a non-roster invite at Spring Training -- was warming in the ’pen before the inning was over, with Boone later noting that Cortes was about a pitch or two away from being pulled. When Astros No. 9 hitter Jake Meyers led off the second frame with a homer, Yankees fans’ muscle memory had them writing off the game as a loss.

But Cortes settled in and was downright dominant from that point on. He allowed just one more hit, leaving after five innings trailing, 4-3. The Yankees' offense, which had ended three of the first four innings by hitting into double plays (twice with the bases loaded), nonetheless saw the dividends of the long and drawn-out at-bats they were working, knocking Astros starter Framber Valdez out of the game in the fifth inning and getting a clutch, game-tying homer from Oswaldo Cabrera in the sixth.

“That was a Yankee classic right there,” Aaron Judge said after the game. “You give us a couple innings, give us a couple to get in the ballgame, we’re going to go out there and do our job.” That was rarely the case in 2023, when the Yankees’ bats, beset by injuries and the vagaries of a cruel sport, regularly failed to come through in the big moments. With a dramatic Opening Day win in 2024, the vibes were different. “I mean, not only Opening Day,” Juan Soto said. “All year long, this is a great win.”

***

For Cortes, the emotions were a bit complicated. On the one hand, he was incredibly grateful to have been chosen to make the first start of the year. After a 2022 campaign that saw him earn an All-Star selection, the beloved teammate struggled through injuries and poor results last year. Starting on Opening Day, he said, was up there with the greatest moments in his career, alongside the All-Star Game appearance and the short-rest win against Cleveland in Game 5 of the 2022 American League Division Series.

The 29-year-old left-hander did his best to treat it like another start. “Obviously, you have the Opening Day stuff in the back of your mind, where you want to do good, you want to perform, you want to make sure the team is off to a good start,” Cortes said. “But that went down the drain after the first inning.”

What he noticed, though, was the strangeness inherent in being the man in the spotlight in Game 1 of 162, a role Yankees teammates are conditioned to seeing Cole handle. During Spring Training last year, Cole acknowledged the weird balance that comes with being a team’s ace: You miss out on some of the pomp and circumstance when you’re in game mode for the biggest starts. “One-hundred percent,” Cortes said after his own time experiencing the disconnect. “Seeing the anthem and the ceremony and calling everybody out, and I’m just in the bullpen. All right, I’m here stretching … That kind of felt weird.”

But in the first four series of the year -- two at home, two on the road -- Cole did everything he could to be present despite sitting on the 60-day injured list with right elbow inflammation. “I wanted to pitch yesterday,” Cole said. “Pretty bad. I felt that I helped contribute in some way.” Instead, he committed himself to constantly working with the team’s pitchers, even watching video of their starts by himself so he could offer insight and assessments after the fact. Cameras constantly found him chatting with teammates during the game, the defending AL Cy Young winner trying to help in any way he could. He even hung out around the cage during BP, helping pick up balls between groups. If it looked like a guy desperate to contribute in any way, it wasn’t far off.

“Yeah,” the ace acknowledged in a melancholy tone the day after the opener in Houston. “But I mean, I do that when I’m healthy, too.”

“That’s who he is,” Boone said. “He’s gotten good at watching games over the years, even being healthy. He watches 125, 130 games a year. And as we all know, he’s very invested on those days. So, it’s frankly not much different than that. He lends his experience and knowledge and thoughts wherever he feels he can help somebody.”

To Cole, it was important to be around the team during the injury, and it came with the bonus of actually getting to experience an Opening Day from the dugout for the first time in a while. But don’t assume that he’s ready to become a spectator in years to come. “I would say it’s a bigger bummer to not pitch Opening Day,” Cole said, laughing.

***

When the players showed up in Houston on March 28, the uniforms they saw weren’t just particularly clean and untouched, ready for Opening Day. The Yankees had actually changed the design of their road wear. Forgetting for a second about the league-wide uniform alterations, the Yankees reverted to a more retro look by dropping the white outline on the “New York” across their chest and the numbers on their back.

It didn’t stop there for Austin Wells, who was greeted by a No. 28 jersey hanging in his locker. Contrary to what usually happens, when Yankees equipment staffers endure a struggle to find any double-digit number not currently in use or already retired, the catcher -- who wore No. 88 in his debut late in 2023 -- was in on the choice.

“I like 28,” Wells said before the first game. “It was the first number they gave me for Low-A. And then I feel like it’s a good number to try and get the 28th World Series. And I was also the 28th pick. There’s a few 28’s in there.”

Unlike 2023, when Anthony Volpe made his first big league appearance in the season opener, there weren’t any debutants in the Yankees’ Opening Day lineup. The only player on the active roster without Major League service time was Clayton Beeter, who would record three outs on three pitches in the second game. “I loved it,” Boone said after the 7-1 win on March 29. “Welcome to the big leagues -- [Jose] Altuve, Yordan [Alvarez] and [Kyle] Tucker. Yeah, pretty good.”

Wells wasn’t slated to start on Opening Day, either -- that honor went to Jose Trevino. But the 24-year-old catcher, who impressed coaches and fans during Spring Training, found some comfort in the familiar confines of the Minute Maid Park clubhouse. “It doesn’t feel like a first to me,” joked the University of Arizona product, whose big league debut last year came in Houston. “I feel like I’m having a hard time separating it from last year, because this is the first thing that I knew and saw.

“It’s like déjà vu to start in Houston. I was like, ‘This is normal, almost.’”

It’s a funny thing about baseball. For every player, there’s something magical about a big league debut, but very few of them happen in the season’s lid-lifter. Most players who have yet to establish themselves in The Show move up and down throughout the season, debuting whenever the team needs them.

And yet even for guys who know the challenges and the excitement of playing in the Majors, there’s still something special about being on an Opening Day roster. For the 2024 Yankees, the list of players either making their first Opening Day squad or just their first as a Yankee featured names such as Soto, Burdi, Jahmai Jones, Luis Gil, Caleb Ferguson and others.

It’s a big thing to make a big league roster. Usually, the manager and relevant position coach make something of a meal out of telling a player he’s breaking camp with the team. (This year, in some cases, it was a bit more challenging, as Boone was in Mexico City with a contingent of Yankees players during the last days of spring camp; some of the conversations had to happen on the phone.)

A strange scenario, though, is the player who accomplishes so much that his roster spot is a fait accompli, known to everyone but the player, himself. Such was the ordeal of Ian Hamilton this past spring. Having excelled in the Majors last year, the “slambio” specialist entered Spring Training all but assured of a roster spot, at least in the minds of Yankees brass. But Hamilton, who first pitched in the Majors in 2018, had never made an Opening Day roster until this year, and whether it was because of his success last year, or just the hectic nature of this unusual March, it’s possible that someone forgot to tell him the good news.

“Yeah, they didn’t say nothing,” the 28-year-old joked before pitching a scoreless eighth inning in the opener. “But they just said, ‘Keep getting ready for Opening Day.’ So, in my head, I’m like, ‘What does that mean? I need something! I need to be told!’ But I understand that, we’re men here. So, it’s like, ‘You’re here. What else do you think’s going on?’ But it’s funny. It’s my first one, so I need someone to tell me. But it’s totally fine. I’m here.”

***

The Yankees headed home in first place after a 6-1 road trip to start the season. Although the new year was already a week old, the players knew that the Yankee Stadium opener would be another beginning. Marcus Stroman, the day’s starting pitcher, who attended Yankees games while growing up on Long Island? He said he could barely eat the day before. Judge, so used to playing big games in the Bronx? “It’s tough to sleep the night before,” he said. “It took me a while to get to bed last night.”

Soto had no such trouble.

“I slept like a baby last night,” he said after the 3-0 loss to Toronto on April 5. “I’m just happy to come over here, to see how it looks. I just couldn’t wait to see the fans and everything. So, I was more than happy to go to bed and try to make it as quick as possible.”

Well rested or not, Soto was bound to resonate powerfully with the fans who had been anticipating his arrival in the Bronx, where the beating music and thumping bass can give games the pulsating energy of a nightclub. The reality was a bit on the nose, though. As Gleyber Torres took batting practice before the home opener, the ground beneath him started shaking. Literally. A magnitude-4.8 earthquake and the subsequent aftershocks certainly added to the jolt of another Yankee Stadium slate beginning. With a solar eclipse maxing out at about 91% totality over the Bronx three days later, it was difficult to separate the good omens from those perhaps a bit more terrifying.

Maybe, though, as with a flatulent elephant for a nervous Boone in 1998, the plunge into darkness and the rattling earth soothed something in the spirit. Perhaps, in this case, the metaphor was not quite so foreboding. Because whatever was going on down around the Earth’s crust or in the heavens above, fans could take refuge in the play on the field; after the home opener, the team rolled through the rest of the homestand with barely a blip, leaving the Bronx with a sterling 10-3 record. By taking two out of their next three games in Cleveland, the 2024 Yankees joined the 1926 squad and the 2010 Yanks as the only teams in franchise history to win each of their first five series of the season.

Around New York City, fourth place is an earthquake of its own, truly catastrophic. And as a stoic Boone pointed out before the home opener, reflecting on the 6-1 start, it was still plenty early. “It is just seven ballgames,” he explained. “I’d say that to you if we were off to a tough start. It’s not about being great in a week; it’s about sustained excellence. And you’re going to go through ups and downs throughout the course of the year. You always want to rack up as many wins as you can. They matter just as much now as in the middle and the end of the season. So, it’s great to get out of the gates like this. But that’s all it is right now.”

You can’t recover from a down year with a great week or two. But after 16 games, all of which will still count in the standings when the weather starts cooling in late September, it was easy to spot cause for optimism. Whether it was Cabrera looking extraordinary at the plate, Volpe maturing into an even more complete player, Giancarlo Stanton leading the team in homers or Soto being Soto, the 2024 Yankees came out looking like a team on a mission.

The offseason after a bad campaign is so hard. It’s a half-year of what-ifs and whys, the negatives outweighing the positives in even the most charitable retellings. Whether due to injuries or bad luck (or certainly injuries caused by bad luck), the 2023 Yankees weren’t good enough. Suddenly, the team trades for Juan Soto, and the optimism creeps in, even with months to go before real games. You’re left with no choice but to start believing in things not yet seen, the literal dictionary definition of faith.

The start -- even without an earthquake or the sun briefly disappearing -- can be so precarious. Lose early, and you’re back where you started, fighting uphill in the AL East standings and against the bad vibes. Win, and everything feels better, looks better, is better. But you have to keep winning. And whatever hiccups might lie ahead, whether foes on the field or any number of natural phenomena, the Yankees looked ready to face them.

“It’s always good to have a good start,” Soto said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to keep looking forward to keep winning games and keep moving forward. At the end of the day, that’s all the past. So, we’ve got to keep moving.”

Jon Schwartz is the deputy editor of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the May 2024 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.