The legendary college rivalry between UCLA and USC in Los Angeles is where Dave Roberts and Aaron Boone first faced off.

Aaron Boone’s peach fuzz and Dave Roberts’ tiny mustache are visible despite the poor film. The Dodgers and New York Yankees’ future managers were 19-year-old undergraduates in 1992, caught up in a thrilling episode of Los Angeles’ well-known college rivalry.

Beginning Friday at Dodger Stadium, Roberts and Boone, who are now 52, will lead the major league titans in the World Series. Following identical trajectories since college, they enjoyed successful professional playing careers interspersed with one memorable postseason moment before establishing themselves as mainstays on the top step of the dugouts of baseball’s most illustrious teams.

That’s how graduates of a city’s two most prominent colleges are supposed to fare, isn’t it?

Roberts played left field for UCLA and hit leadoff. Boone played third base and batted sixth for USC. The game was intense, with the Trojans scoring nine runs in the eighth inning to win 13-8 after the Bruins took an early 7-1 lead.

Batting left-handed, Roberts opened the scoring with a single on an infield chopper that soared over the head of the pitcher. Boone applied the tag after Roberts, the Bruins’ all-time top base stealer with 109, was thrown out trying to swipe third.

Batting right-handed, Boone delivered an RBI single in the eighth to score the game-winning run. Early in the game, he also dove to collect a bunt on the air. Roberts scampered back quickly to prevent a double play as he was on first base.

Roberts smiled as he recalled, “We weren’t friends,” with Boone. “I wasn’t very fond of him at the time. He didn’t seem to care all that much about me. My dislike of him and the Trojans was presumably heightened by the fact that, as I remember, they most likely defeated us. However, he was an incredible ballplayer.

So was Roberts, who scored 176 runs and had 241 hits in 181 games while batting.326 with a.425 on-base percentage over his three seasons at UCLA. Boone hit.302 with 11 home runs and 94 runs batted in during his 174 games at USC.

The Cincinnati Reds selected Boone in the third round of the draft after he excelled as a junior, hitting.340 with a.922 OPS and 26 stolen bases. With his father Bob, brother Bret, and grandpa Ray all having had successful playing careers, the Boone family is baseball royalty.

Read more: Freddie Freeman of the Dodgers anticipates being “a 100% go” for the first game of the World Series

During his 19 seasons as a catcher, mostly with the Philadelphia Phillies and Angels, Bob Boone frequently accompanied Aaron and Bret to the stadium.

In 2018, Aaron Boone told USC Today, “My dad always took us with him, and that’s one of the things I’m so grateful for.” “We fell in love with the game because we got to know and be around so many amazing guys and did so many amazing things at the ballpark as kids growing up.”

Scouts didn’t think much of the slightly built Roberts, and he wasn’t taken until the 28th round by the Detroit Tigers. But he defied expectations by earning $23.6 million over ten seasons in the major leagues.

The Trojans defeated the Bruins 11 out of 20 games while Boone and Roberts were in the starting lineups. Boone’s RBI single in the ninth inning secured the Trojans a 1-0 victory in 1994, and he scored the game-winning run in the tenth inning of another game in 1992. In 1994, Roberts hit a single and stole second base to score the game-winning run for UCLA in the eleventh inning.

Both players failed to make it to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1992, UCLA fell in the regional finals, and in 1993 and 1994, USC also lost. However, ten years later, their postseason results were different. In the legendary American League rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and Yankees, both are most remembered for a single, spectacular postseason moment.
In Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, Boone hit a walkoff home run that sent the Yankees to the World Series and the Red Sox home. “What I want to know is, what are all these people doing in my dream?” Boone joked as Yankee Stadium erupted in applause from 56,000 spectators.

A year later, Roberts’ stolen base allowed the Red Sox to stay in the ALCS, defeat the Yankees, and sweep the St. Louis Cardinals to win the World Series for the first time since 1918. “Maury told me that anyone can do the safe thing, but it takes someone special to take a chance,” Roberts said in a Times interview years later, referring to Dodgers stolen-base king Maury Wills as a source of guidance.

Despite the sweetness of the recollections, Boone and Roberts are wise enough not to bring them up in conversation.

“I’d probably give him a lot of grief if he brought up that homer to beat the Sox and he would return the favor if I brought up the stolen base,” Roberts stated.
They can talk about a lot of current topics. In his ninth season as manager, Roberts has led the Dodgers to an 851-506 regular-season record with the highest winning percentage in Major League history (.627). His teams are 52-43, have four World Series appearances (including a 2020 title), and have advanced to the postseason each year.

In his seven seasons with the Yankees, Boone has had consistent success during the regular season, finishing 603-429 (.584) and recording a winning record each year. This is the Yankees’ first World Series participation since 2009, and he is 21-19 in the postseason.

“We have a lot of mutual friends, we sort of have similar circles,” Roberts stated. Before he was hired by the Yankees, we spoke. We have a great relationship.

Boone still keeps up with USC, particularly the football team. In high school, he played football, and he even considered going to a university where he could play both sports. However, Bret, his brother, had been a Trojan.
“My one thought throughout high school was that I wanted to attend USC. And that came to pass,” he said. It’s one of those locations where, for the majority of visitors, you realize that you are in a very unique spot. I have very positive memories of those three years of my life.

Roberts has the same opinion on UCLA. His mother is Japanese, and his father is Black. He was the Dodgers’ first minority manager. When Jackie Robinson made his Dodgers debut in 1947, he broke down the color barrier as a player.

In 2015, Roberts told UCLA’s Optimism magazine, “It’s kind of multilayered for me to be the first African-American manager as well.” Jackie Robinson Stadium is where I performed. I played for the Dodgers and UCLA. My alias on the road is Jackie Robinson. He is someone I greatly like, and it’s amazing to observe how the cultures of African Americans, Japanese, and UCLA supporters relate to one other.

For the time being, Dodger blue and Yankee pinstripes must take precedence over college loyalty. A few years back, during spring training, Boone was asked if he would consider playing for the Dodgers and competing against Roberts in a World Series.
When he said, “I’d sign up for that!,” “If that was in the cards, I’d definitely sign up for that.”

It starts on Friday.

“It is very cool that we played against each other as college rivals and now you can just see that this rivalry with the Dodgers and Yankees, it is pretty special, it goes way back and we are doing it again, opposing one another,” Roberts stated. “It’s pretty remarkable.”

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The legendary college rivalry between UCLA and USC in Los Angeles is where Dave Roberts and Aaron Boone first faced off.

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