This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Gracie Cashman was introduced to baseball’s personal side earlier than most, by way of the family business. Her earliest recollection of a personnel change occurred in 2001, when the daughter of general manager Brian Cashman was just 4 years old.
“I don’t think I ever met Chuck Knoblauch, or if I did, it was very briefly,” she recalled this week. “My parents were chatting in their bathroom about how he’d [left as a free agent], and I went into hysterics, sobbing. My dad was like, ‘What is her problem? She doesn’t even know this man.’ But I was like, ‘What a betrayal on every level. What is wrong with you?’ I was devastated!”
Perhaps that sparked Cashman’s interest in learning the stories behind the pinstriped personnel. The 26-year-old hosts a new YES App original series, “The Story of My Number,” which premieres on Thursday.
The first episode features Yankees manager Aaron Boone, followed by a star-studded lineup: Don Mattingly, Andy Pettitte, CC Sabathia, Tino Martinez and Nick Swisher. The program’s format hinges upon the pivotal numbers that define the careers of star athletes, from record-breaking scores to milestone achievements.
“It’s so revealing,” Cashman said. “You realize while they’re playing, they have these whole lives with their wives, with their kids. Growing up in it, it’s easy for me to see how it all fits together as one life, but I think for someone that has not had that window, it’s difficult to see.
“So it’s interesting in this show, because we get to talk about both. We get to use the numbers as stats, as their area code or whatever, and talk about all of it. I think it gives you a really good picture of who they are as a whole person, rather than just as an athlete or just a husband or just a dad.”
Cashman said that the show's content was deeply researched, digging back decades to uncover stories that the subjects had not previously addressed.
“Our writers and fact-checkers, they were going into magazines from colleges and high schools, so we got a lot of, ‘How did you find this out? How did you know all of this?’” Cashman said. “The ones that were most revealing to me were the ones that, when we asked, we really didn’t know the answer. I was saying, ‘How has he never talked about this before?’
“There’s a story that Tino Martinez told about when [Team USA] played in Cuba, and it was nuts. I don’t want to spoil it, but he has a really good story about Fidel Castro.”
The Paley Center for Media will host the series' world premiere on Monday evening in Manhattan. Boone, Cashman, Martinez and Swisher will attend, along with Yankees play-by-play announcer Michael Kay.
In the first episode, Boone discusses many topics, including his 2003 pennant-winning homer off Tim Wakefield of the Red Sox, the 2019 “Savages in the Box” ejection, being part of a three-generation Major League family and his heart surgeries.
“I just think it’s a really cute, fun series,” Cashman said. “There’s so much to learn about your favorite stars.”