Of course, no one knows how it will work out for the Mets with Luis Rojas, age 38, as their new manager. You never know. In another baseball borough of New York City, no one knew how it would work out for Aaron Boone when the Yankees hired him out of an ESPN broadcast booth, when he had none of the experience Rojas has had in the Mets' system as a coach, and Minor League manager, and manager in the Dominican Republic.

When Brian Cashman, the Yankees general manager, hired Boone, the only on-field baseball experience Boone had had was as a player. All Boone has done since is win 100 games in each of his first two seasons as the Yankees' manager, something no Yanks manager before him had ever done.

But Boone and Rojas, the two New York managers, have something else in common now besides big-city geography: Each of them comes from a great baseball family. Aaron Boone is the son of Bob, who managed and played in the big leagues, and the grandson of Ray Boone. Luis Rojas? He is the son of Felipe Alou, who played and managed in the big leagues, half-brother to Moises, nephew to Matty and Jesus Alou.

• Alou on brother Rojas: 'It was a matter of time'

The family name in the Dominican is the paternal family name, Rojas. When the Giants signed Felipe, now 84, a very long time ago, the scout who signed him mistakenly thought his matronym, Alou, was his surname. And so the long, proud legacy of the Alou brothers began that way in baseball. Proud legacy, by any name.

It continues now with Felipe's son, Luis. So we have a Boone on one side of the place I've always called Baseball New York, and an Alou on the other. Name and legacy guarantee neither one of them anything. But they're not such a terrible place to start, either. Rojas is considerably younger than Aaron Boone. Both of them are baseball lifers.

"We didn't hire Luis because of his name, or his pedigree, or a baseball name that I consider royalty," Omar Minaya, former Mets general manager and now special assistant to current general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, told me on Saturday morning, the day after Rojas was formerly introduced as the new Mets manager. "But Luis is right when he talks about how his college and university were baseball clubhouses, for as long as he could remember. He grew up in this life the way Aaron Boone did. It's why I believe they were both born to do this kind of work."

• These father-son duos managed in MLB

Minaya was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in Corona in Queens, a few blocks from Citi Field. He didn't just speak of the Alou family. He spoke of Rojas' career arc, as a Minor League manager in Gulf Coast and Savannah, Ga., and Port St. Lucie, Fla., before becoming a big league coach. And Minaya spoke of the experience Rojas had as manager in the Dominican Winter League.

"Even at 38, he's really had a traditional background," Minaya said. "You look back across baseball history, and you see how guys like [Tony] La Russa and [Jim] Leyland and [Tommy] Lasorda went to winter leagues to learn their trade. It's one of the things Luis did. In the process, he was becoming the kind of bottom-to-top organization guy the way [Cardinals manager] Mike Shildt and [Braves skipper] Brian Snitker are."

Rojas was not the Mets' first choice after Mickey Callaway was fired. Carlos Beltrán got the job last November and then lost it this month in the wake of Major League Basebal's investigation into the Astros' sign-stealing practices in 2017. This time the Mets went with the son of Felipe Alou. They went with the son of a manager, and one of the most respected baseball men of his time, one who will always believe he was going to win the World Series with the 1994 Montreal Expos before a labor dispute between the owners and the players cancelled the season in August. The Expos were merely 74-40 at the time.

"Managing in the Minors and managing in winter leagues is no guarantee for success in the big leagues, obviously," Minaya said. "But I've always been of the opinion that you can see very quickly with managers, at any level, whether they have leadership qualities or not. Fred and Jeff [Wilpon] and Brodie believe Luis has them. So do I. Luis feels as if he's lived the life of a manager his whole life."

You still never know. The football Giants, not so far from Citi Field over in New Jersey, just hired Joe Judge, a special teams coach from the Patriots, as their head coach. Judge is also 38, three months younger than Rojas. They believe he is experienced beyond his years. Clearly the Mets have the same belief in Rojas. They passed him over once for Beltrán. Not this time, hoping this now becomes his time at Citi Field.

"We all live in the world of new information in baseball," Minaya said, "but I believe that traditional values still matter. This is a very young man, but he has an old-school story."

Young guy, old story. Son of a manager named Boone on one side of New York. Son of a manager named Alou on the other. Lot of family history with both of them, trying to make history of their own in the big city.