Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>Probably the brilliance of listening to him talk about baseball. Even at my age, I have learned so much from him over the last few years. Particularly how he looked at on-base\u00a0percentage,\u00a0he thought that was\u00a0one of the most important things when looking at baseball players.<\/p>\n Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Now Gene Michael was dealing with analytics before it was even called analytics. What\u2019s your opinion on that?<\/p>\n Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>Well that\u2019s one of the reasons why there are a\u00a0lot of people\u00a0that think that he was the\u00a0architect\u00a0of the dynasty, and he just had foresight. He\u2019s looked at baseball and he looked at it as what can you do and who can you trust,\u00a0and he\u00a0was very analytical about that. Trusting a ball player\u00a0to\u00a0perform was one of the things that he thought was important\u00a0when you\u00a0select a ball player to play that next hundred plus games.<\/p>\n Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Why was it that you had such a\u00a0relationship with\u00a0Gene Michael? I mean, people had no idea how close the two of you were. Why was that Kenny?<\/p>\n Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>God\u2019s Will, because who am I?\u00a0We met about ten\u00a0years ago when I was working at the\u00a0Yankees and he forgot his credentials and they wouldn\u2019t let him in. I went over there because I recognized him,\u00a0and I escorted him\u00a0up to the suite and we made friends and he says, \u201ccan we have lunch sometime?\u201d\u00a0I said, \u201cyes!\u201d It\u00a0just became a relationship\u00a0that\u00a0only one person can treasure.<\/p>\n Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Kenny how does one get over that? I mean you guys had scheduled\u00a0to have lunch the very next day when he had the heart attack. How do you get over that?<\/p>\n Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>You don\u2019t. We were supposed to meet the next day,\u00a0and earlier\u00a0in the morning I got the call from New York;\u00a0he died and I just couldn\u2019t believe it. I was only 6 months older than him.<\/p>\n Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Unbelievable. Kenny,\u00a0he was\u00a0so involved with the Yankees for so long, how do they go on without him?<\/p>\n Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>I lost\u00a0my wife the year before,\u00a0and it\u2019s the same thing;\u00a0it\u2019s a void there.\u00a0You\u00a0don\u2019t live this long and not have relationships that you just never get over. But the importance of it is\u00a0that when\u00a0you do think about people every\u00a0day, that just tells\u00a0you\u00a0what kind of a relationship\u00a0you had; that\u2019s going to be\u00a0difficult.<\/p>\n Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019m not\u00a0sure. I think the ones that had\u00a0been around during\u00a0the\u00a0building\u00a0of\u00a0his dynasty,\u00a0they understand. He thought that\u00a0any year would be his last year,\u00a0but he just kept going. When the time came, I asked him when he was going to retire\u00a0and\u00a0he said\u00a0\u201cEh\u00a0maybe next year\u201d, that was like four\u00a0years ago.<\/p>\n Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Does a Brian Cashman understand the aspect that his mentor is no longer there and how does he continue?<\/p>\n Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>Funny you should ask,\u00a0because just a few weeks before Gene passed, he said that the best move that he ever made was hiring Cashman, because it worked.\u00a0Gene\u00a0gave a lot\u00a0of credit to Cashman over the years for making the\u00a0right\u00a0decisions. Gene respected all the difficult things that Cashman had to deal with and he came through with flying colors.<\/p>\n Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Well listen I want to thank you,\u00a0because I wanted to talk to you\u00a0since\u00a0you were one of the guys that really knew him best. You got very\u00a0intimate\u00a0with him and you really knew him\u00a0better than\u00a0most people in all of baseball. \u00a0I\u2019m grateful\u00a0that you\u2019ve shared this time.<\/p>\n Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019m just proud of the fact that he thought he could tell me things that would never\u00a0be\u00a0repeated.<\/p>\n Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Will you ever write a book about Gene Michael?<\/p>\n Kenny:\u00a0<\/strong>First of all, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m capable of writing the book. But if I wrote\u00a0the\u00a0book\u00a0it would be about all of the wonderful times that I had with Gene and the stories that he told me about how much he loved Mr. Steinbrenner and the entire Yankee organization.<\/p>\n Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Thank you so much for sharing a few things about Gene Michael. I know that you still feel the pain of loosing Gene, however I am happy that you had ten exceptional years with a good friend. \u00a0Most people don\u2019t get that.<\/p>\n Kenny: \u00a0<\/strong>You\u2019ve got that right, thank you so much<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On opening day I find myself having breakfast with Ken Fagan. Ken, a retired and celebrated Air Force veteran, was probably Gene Michael\u2019s best friend during the last ten years of Gene\u2019s life. They used to have breakfast or lunch daily at the same restaurant in Springhill, Florida. When possible, I used to join them. … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/theraynegronstory.com\/columns\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_1951-300x225.jpg\")
Negron:<\/strong>\u00a0Do baseball and the Yankees truly understand the\u00a0significance of\u00a0what Gene Michael really was?<\/p>\n