Boone to leave Nationals due to vaccine mandate

The Nationals' recent decision to require all full-time, non-playing employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19 will result in the departures of some staff members, including one of general manager Mike Rizzo's top lieutenants: Bob Boone.

Boone, who has worked in the front office since the club arrived in Washington in 2005, has informed the organization he will step down instead of getting the vaccine, sources familiar with the decision confirmed.

A handful of other employees are expected to lose their jobs because they won't adhere to the new vaccine policy, including at least two scouts so far, sources said.

The Nationals informed all employees in mid-August of the policy, giving everyone two weeks either to show proof of vaccination, intent to be vaccinated or a request to be exempted for medical or religious reasons. Now that the deadline has passed, the club is beginning the process to remove those whose exemption requests were denied from their positions.

Boone, who turns 74 in November, informed the team he will step down, ending a 16-year stint in the front office that made him one of only a few members of the baseball operations department to have been here since the inaugural 2005 season.

The former All-Star catcher and manager of the Royals and Reds officially joined the Nationals in December 2004 as a special assistant to former general manager Jim Bowden. He remained with the club since, through an ownership change, a GM change and six managerial changes, serving as assistant GM and vice president of player development, vice president of player personnel and most recently vice president and senior adviser to the since 2015.

Rizzo, who became GM in 2009, has long touted Boone as one of his most trusted advisers, someone who could both evaluate and instruct minor leaguers and scout potential draft picks and big league opponents.

Boone belongs to of one of baseball's most accomplished families. His father, Ray, was an All-Star infielder in the 1950s. His sons, Bret and Aaron, were both All-Stars, with Aaron playing for the Nationals in 2008 and Bret playing briefly for their Triple-A affiliate that season. Aaron Boone has managed the Yankees the last four seasons and nearly faced off against his dad's club in the 2019 World Series. Jake Boone, Bret's son and Bob's grandson, is currently an infielder for the Nationals' Single-A affiliate in Fredericksburg.

The Nationals joined the Astros as baseball's first two organizations to institute a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for full-time employees, with others in the sport poised to follow.

"As a company, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to keep one another safe and felt that mandating vaccines was the absolute right thing to do for our employees and our community," the team said in a statement released after the news became public last Friday.

Teams are not allowed to require players to be vaccinated, because that would be subject to collective bargaining between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association. The Nationals crossed the league's 85 percent vaccination threshold for Tier 1 members (players, coaches, trainers and others who are part of the club's regular on-field staff) three months ago, though they've still experienced three separate incidents this season in which multiple players and/or coaches were required to quarantine following positive tests for the virus.

The Washington Examiner and Washington Post were first to report Boone's pending departure, and The Athletic first reported departures in the scouting department.