Aaron Boone's never-ending Dodgers obsession isn't the motivation he thinks it is

You could forgive the New York Yankees for having a hard time getting over their five-game World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers last October. Falling one step short of your ultimate goal is tough to swallow under any circumstances, but it's especially brutal when you do it while stepping on as many rakes as you can in as spectacular a fashion as possible — and when your opponent takes time out of its victory lap to make clear how little they respected you.

But that was months ago. Time heals all wounds, and as the calendar turns to 2025 and teams report to spring training this week, it's time to shift our focus to a whole new season. Juan Soto may not be wearing pinstripes anymore, but New York still figures to be at or near the top of a wide-open American League. It's time to let it go and move forward, right?

Wrong, at least if you happen to be Yankees manager Aaron Boone. In his first interview of the spring on Tuesday, Boone made clear that he's very much not over how the Dodgers responded to their World Series win: "They have that right to say whatever," Boone said. "Hopefully we're in that position next year and handle things with a little more class."

It's understandable that Boone didn't care for being kicked while he and his team were down, especially in ways that were a direct reflection on him as a manager. But the fact that the leader of New York's clubhouse is still this hung up on what happened several months ago sure doesn't bode well for the Yankees having learned any of the right lessons from that humbling loss.

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Aaron Boone is letting the Dodgers hang over the Yankees' 2025 season

By all means, let the Yankees use all that Dodgers trash-talk as motivation ... on the field. But it sure doesn't seem like Boone is changing anything about how the team teaches defense or baserunning, or how he manages his bullpen. And really, all comments like this are doing are allowing L.A. to live rent-free in New York's head far beyond the point at which it has any right to.

Presumably Boone's players, especially the ones who weren't a member of the Yankees last year, don't feel like having to continue to answer questions about this story while they're getting ready for a new season. And yet here we are, generating even more headlines about it, all because Boone doesn't understand that his job is to not allow his feelings to be hurt — at least in public. His job is to lead his team, and he can best do that by taking an honest look at where things went wrong last season and what he needs to do to make sure it doesn't happen again. That's the best revenge, not planning your victory speech in the mirror in early February.