Aaron Boone told truth, and Yanks got A-Rod

PEORIA, Ariz. — This is what Bret Boone will remember most: that his little brother didn't lie.

It would have been the simplest thing, just to fib. Aaron Boone was rolling on a California basketball court, the ligaments in his knee a shredded mess. In the high-stakes world of baseball, such an injury is financial suicide. Big-money contracts forbid perilous offseason pursuits like basketball for the very reason Boone was sprawled on the ground clutching his knee. One wrong step and an investment is lost.

All Boone would have had to tell his employers, the New York Yankees, was that he slipped on a wet floor or fell down while running stadium steps. Anything but playing basketball. Had he done this, the Yankees wouldn't have had cause to terminate his contract and therefore wouldn't have had the money free to lavish upon Alex Rodriguez, turning their lineup into the single greatest collection of power since Brezhnev saluted his last May Day.

Most important to Boone, he still would have the $5.75 million the Yankees owed him, rather than getting his release from New York, which officially came yesterday.

Instead, he told the truth. In doing so, he opened the door for Rodriguez, and baseball has never seemed more lost than it does this morning.

"I've got a lot of respect over how he went about it. He didn't try to cover it up," Bret Boone said yesterday morning as he sat in the Mariners' clubhouse. "That's the thing about him. He has character and is honest. You have to respect someone who is honest from the get-go. As a professional athlete, it's tough to do that."

Many wouldn't have. Players have been lying about the real causes of their injuries for years in an effort to protect their salaries. Contracts today have all kinds of clauses prohibiting everything from skiing to motorcycle riding. But they're also hard to enforce. Who's to say an ankle fractured on the ski slope couldn't have been broken walking to the garage on an icy evening?

While Aaron undoubtedly had witnesses when he tumbled on the basketball court in January, the group could have agreed on a vow of silence to protect the famous ballplayer in their midst. After all, there probably isn't a CEO alive whose first instinct is to tell the truth when a fortune is at stake. If there were, Martha Stewart wouldn't be facing an eternity of trying to make tasteful place settings with metal trays and plastic forks.

"I agree with what he did," Bret said. "When people think you're lying and know you're lying, that taints your character. Now when you speak, people don't know if you're telling the truth or not about anything."

Then Bret said this:

He isn't so sure his brother's injury came on that basketball floor.

A month before at a family bowling tournament in Orange County, Aaron complained of a problem with a knee. It wasn't big, and at the time it hardly seemed to matter.

"I was whuppin' him!" Bret said with a laugh. "He said to me, 'I don't want to make any excuses, but my knee has been bothering me.' "

Bret shrugged.

"Who knows?" he said. "Maybe it was a precursor to what happened."

It's too late now. Aaron is gone, his money has been thrown to Rodriguez, and as a result, baseball has rolled off its axis. Anyway, it would be hard to prove when the injury actually occurred. Aaron has already admitted to playing basketball, and a team of surgeons has already sealed up the evidence in a big red scar on the third baseman's knee.

"I'm not a doctor," Bret said. "All I can say is what I saw in person at Christmastime."

Now the sad thing for him is to see how fast everything fell apart for his little brother. Just four months ago, they were at Yankee Stadium. Aaron was at the plate in the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 7 of the American League Championship Series — the World Series on the line. Bret was in the Fox broadcast booth.

Then Tim Wakefield hung a knuckleball. Aaron's bat whipped around, and in a second, as the ball dropped into the bleachers, there was mayhem in the Bronx. The Fox cameras turned to Bret sitting in the booth. He said nothing and just stared straight ahead, his lips twisted in a stunned and silly smirk.

"Inside I had goose bumps for him," he said.

Later he went down to the Yankees' clubhouse, wading through the mass of delirious players until he finally found Aaron. And at that moment, standing in a rival clubhouse with champagne, beer and shaving cream flying all around, Bret was never prouder of his little brother.

That is until everything went wrong and Aaron chose to do the right thing.

In this spring of Yankees chaos, Alex Rodriguez and steroid suspicion, the best story has been lost. Aaron Boone told the truth when it really would have paid to lie.

Somewhere in this twisted baseball world that should count for something.

Les Carpenter: 206-464-2280 or lcarpenter@seattletimes.com