A bond with The Boss: The Ray Negron story
By Roberto Salvador Klapisch
Anyone who’s been around the Yankees long enough has met Ray Negron, the franchise’s No. 1 ambassador and de facto historian. Chances are, you know his backstory as well, and what an unlikely start he got in the Bronx in 1973. On the last day of his junior year of high school, Negron and his friends were caught spray-painting the walls of Yankee Stadium by none other than George Steinbrenner.
In his skewed 16-year-old logic, Negron figured he was decorating the old ballpark, not defacing it, emblazoning a white “N” and “Y” on the surface of a blue partition. It was bad graffiti, even by old New York subway standards. The Boss grabbed Negron by the neck and took him downstairs, into the bowels of the Stadium. But instead of delivering him to the NYPD holding station used to process drunks from the bleachers, Steinbrenner walked Negron straight to the clubhouse.
“Put him to work,” Steinbrenner barked as he shoved Negron in the direction of clubhouse manager Pete Sheehy. Negron, who had cut school that afternoon, never made it home, at least not until finishing his first full day as a bat boy. Negron was hooked.
He had gone from street punk to Yankee employee while his buddies, dumbfounded, were left standing outside. In the coming years Negron would become Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson’s personal assistant and Billy Martin’s confidante. The marriage to the Yankees is still going strong.
Negron is now a special advisor to the Steinbrenner family, and the team’s community liaison. That’s a fancy way of saying he’s promoting the brand, whether by visiting children’s hospitals with the Yankees players or helping Hank Steinbrenner, George’s oldest son, run his “Hank’s Yanks” baseball program, a non-profit travel team for 10-to-18 year-olds.
Negron’s resume is just as deep as his Rolodex; if he doesn’t know you, he’ll make the leap. Chances are you and he are separated by no more than one or two degrees. Either way it’s hard to miss Ray, still smooth-faced at 62, blessed with a full salt-and-pepper mane. He’s at virtually every home game in the Bronx, doing what he does best, networking for the Yankees, making connections and widening his audience.
Negron is, after all, a Pinstripe time tunnel, full of anecdotes that go back as far as Billy and Reggie, Bobby Murcer and Thurman Munson and, of course, the late Steinbrenner himself.
The bond with the Boss has evolved into a present-day business relationship with team president Randy Levine, who Negron reports to and considers a friend. In his final days before passing away in 2010, Steinbrenner told Levine, “make sure you take care of Ray.” Still, there’s something enduring about that way the two principals in this story crossed paths.
Steinbrenner was one of the most dominant figures in the sports world, wealthy and tyrannical, not be crossed. The Boss didn’t just own the Yankees, he owned the back pages of the tabloids any day he picked up the phone and felt like making news.
Negron, half-Cuban, half-Puerto Rican, was just a prankster, the son of an immigrant dad who started working as stocker in a Brooklyn grocery store before eventually becoming its owner. Cirilo Negron aimed high for Ray. He wanted his kid to have a better life, even if it meant accepting help from outside the family. The elder Negron knew the Boss’ clemency did more than save his boy from the cops – it changed his life.
To say Ray has succeeded is putting it mildly. Aside from working with the Yankees, he’s written several children’s books, developed a full-length animated movie called “Henry and Me” and can be heard on weekends on ESPN Radio 1050 AM.
For all his contributions to the community, Negron is a member of the International Latino Hall of Fame. But he never forgot the two men who changed his life – his hard-working dad who was his rock, and the baseball legend who was his ticket out.
The link between Negron and Steinbrenner was never a secret. The Boss loved to brag that he rescued Ray. Decades later, in fact, one of the Yankees’ minority owners, Barry Halper, told Steinbrenner he’d just seen a movie that reminded him not only about the Boss, but of Negron, too.
“What are you talking about?” Steinbrenner asked. “What movie?”
“A Bronx Tale,” Halper said. “It’s so similar to you and Ray.”
Intrigued, Steinbrenner watched the film the next day and was struck by the similarities between himself and Sonny, the character played by Chazz Palminteri. The Boss was no Mafia mobster, of course, but he’d grown into a surrogate father to Ray, just as Sonny was to the neighborhood kid Calogero, played by Lillo Brancato. Ray was Calogero in real life.
Steinbrenner ended up inviting Palminteri to a Yankees game soon after, making sure to let Negron know a surprise was waiting for him in the executive suite. “Go see who’s there, Ray,” he said, leading up a meeting Negron would’ve never thought possible in his graffiti days. He and Palminteri hit it off immediately, the start of a 25-year friendship.
When it came time to cast “Henry and Me” Negron not only recruited stars like Richard Gere and Danny Aiello and Luis Guzman for voice-overs, he asked Palminteri to read Babe Ruth’s lines. His gravelly-voiced imitation of the Bambino practically stole the flick.
The tables turned six months ago. It was Palminteri who told Negron the time had come to tell his own story. “Don’t wait until it’s too late,” he said. Indeed, the arc of Ray’s life had been recounted in books and magazines and in the Big Apple’s newspapers. But what’d been missing was a stage presentation. That dream came true this weekend at the Argyle Theater in Babylon, New York.
The name of the play is “Batboy: A Yankee Miracle” which features Negron, Ciaran Sheehan – one of the stars of Phantom of the Opera – as Bobby Murcer, Joey Gian (Knots Landing) as Thurman Munson and Mickey Rivers as himself.
The theme of the play is redemption and second chances, or as Negron put it, “letting kids know that anything is possible with a positive attitude.” Mostly, though, it’s a tribute to the Yankees, which has been Negron’s second family, and to Steinbrenner. The real one, not the back page monster older fans remember.
Those closest to the Boss knew of his good side; his countless acts of charity, which were rarely reported in the press. The decision to spare Negron on the day he committed a petty crime was one more peek at the Boss’ better angels. That’s the message Ray is delivering today, not just to fellow Latinos, but anyone with a heart.
“Even though I was a person of color, George allowed me to feel like I belonged wherever I went,” Negron said. “That was his gift to me. That’s what I’m giving back in this play. I’m still thankful to this day.”
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