Posted on 10/30/2007 1:38:18 PM PDT by STARWISE
Just outside East Peoria, Ill., in a one-story brick building in a small town called Washington, there used to be a Italian restaurant on Wilmore Street where locals could count on reasonable prices and old-world cooking, and a warm personal greeting from the owners. The place was called Girardi's.
"They served the best ravioli I've ever had in my life," says Jane Miller, a longtime patron.
That was mother Angela Girardi, welcoming customers by the door, a hostess with a long, flowing dress and a background in psychology. That was father Jerry in the kitchen, a man who once harbored baseball dreams of his own, cooking the pasta and simmering the sauces.
And those were the five kids, including the future manager of the Yankees, busing tables, slinging dishes and mopping floors, all hands pitching in, most of them heading to high places. Though the restaurant has long since closed, Angela dying a quarter-century ago, Jerry moving into an assisted-living facility, his faculties stolen by Alzheimer's, the steadfast, selfless tracks laid down by the parents remain in place.
"Joe Girardi was probably the most grounded young man we've ever had come through here," says Paul Stevens, the baseball coach at Northwestern University, where Girardi became an all-Big Ten catcher, before becoming one of the few big-leaguers in history to get behind the plate with an industrial engineering degree.
Joseph Elliott Girardi has the graying brush-cut of a Marine, and the hard-body resolve of a guy you want in your foxhole. Today, the 43-year-old Girardi officially will be named the 32nd manager of the Yankees, a position he was widely considered to be an underdog for, before he spent five hours last week in the Tampa pinstriped compound. There he leapfrogged past front-runner and Yankee icon Don Mattingly, apparently doing so with the smarts, savvy and stalwart character that those who know him best say long have been his trademarks.
Girardi had the unusual distinction of winning Manager of the Year honors and getting fired at the end of his one previous managerial gig, with the Florida Marlins, departing after a falling-out with owner Jeffrey Loria. That was in 2006. A big-league executive who knows Girardi well wonders about his fit in the Bronx - "Joe can be pretty stubborn and I don't know how flexible he's going to be in dealing with the front office and all the people running around Tampa" - but Dr.John Girardi, his older brother, believes the marriage is a perfect one.
"The Yankees got a young manager and Joe got the position he always truly wanted," says the elder Girardi, CEO and president of the Poplar Creek Surgical Center in Hoffman Estates, Ill.
Bob Manning is a Peoria city councilman, a former high school teammate and lifelong friend of Joe Girardi's.
"The one thing you can say about Joe is that he is a fierce competitor," Manning says. "Nobody is going to outwork him, and nobody is going to outhustle him. He's not a real rah-rah guy. He just kind of leads by example.
"I've seen him in a number of situations, pressure situations where we needed a hit, needed a touchdown, and he was just cool. Joe Montana was always referred to that way in the huddle. Joe Girardi is very similar to that, I would say."
After Jim Leyritz's homer in Game4, Girardi may have had the biggest Yankee hit of the 1996 World Series, a triple off of Greg Maddux that ignited a three-run rally in the third inning of the decisive Game6.
"It didn't surprise me in the least," Manning said. * * *
Jerry Girardi, the father of five, had a love of baseball himself, but had his career cut short by the Air Force and a tour of duty in the Korean War. He and Angela raised the kids in a split-level suburban home, opened the restaurant and stressed education throughout. Joe went to Father Sweeney School, a parochial school for academically gifted students, before enrolling in Spalding Institute for high school, along with two brothers who went on to become doctors, and a sister, Maria Girardi, who became a distinguished mathematics professor at the University of South Carolina.
"The whole family is extremely motivated in what they do," says Dave Lang, Girardi's high school coach at Spalding. "Every coach and teacher who had him knew Joe was going to very successful at something, we just didn't know what it would be."
Lang recalls a kid whose will was unyielding, who would finish first in every sprint, push himself through pain and fatigue in every situation. The coach still remembers a ballgame in Girardi's junior year, at a field with miles of foul territory. A kid hit a foul pop near the first-base dugout that Lang was positive nobody could catch.
"Next thing I know something is flashing before my eyes and it's Joe, laying himself out, diving, catching the ball," Lang says. "I thought, 'You've got to be kidding.' Ninety percent of the catchers I've ever coached would've said, 'That's out of reach. I'm not even running for it.'"
Girardi was one of the few catchers Lang would ever entrust to call his own game; even in high school, he brought a precise engineer's analysis to his pitch-calling, constantly thinking and evaluating what pitch would work in what situation.
Says Northwestern's Paul Stevens, "He was always looking for an edge, and in a lot of cases, he found it, whether it was by exploiting something the batter was doing or what a pitcher was doing that might have been out of the ordinary."
John Trautwein was a Northwestern junior when Girardi arrived, a righthander who would go on to play pro ball, and have a brief tour as a reliever with the Red Sox in 1988.
"He was just a fabulous guy to throw to, because he learned not only the hitters, but also learned the pitcher - your personality, what you liked to throw in what situation, even why you would sometimes shake him off," Trautwein says. "That's the kind of thing you can't coach. He immediately made a huge impact on me as a pitcher, and the team. You always had so much confidence when you threw to him."
Girardi's days behind the plate began as a 10-year-old Little Leaguer, at the urging of a coach named Dave Rodgers, who saw his brain, arm and quickness and thought catcher. Girardi wanted to pitch and play third base and was none too pleased, Rodgers says, but he went after his new role with alacrity nonetheless.
"You'd tell him how to do things, and he'd do them, no matter what," Rodgers says. Rodgers believed that air conditioning was damaging to young arms, and so were drafts, so he instructed Girardi to cover his right arm with a tube sock and sleep in warm or hot air, even in the summer heat in Illinois. Girardi complied, much to the dismay of the family.
"His mother told me the whole house was hot because of me, but Joe kept doing it all the way through school and never had a sore arm," Rodgers says. * * *
Girardi's former coaches and teammates speak of a man who has no lust for glory or personal acclaim; the team was always the thing for him, and it didn't matter if he was hitting first or fourth or ninth. He just wanted to contribute, and would work tirelessly to do so, even when college coaches in his own area were saying the 5-11 Girardi couldn't play major-college baseball, let alone pro ball. A quarter-century later, Trautwein has a vivid image of a spring-break trip Northwestern took to North Carolina one year. There were lots of doubleheaders and long bus rides, a grinding schedule. One night Trautwein returned to the team's no-frills motel, around 11:30, to see Girardi, dressed only in his sliding shorts, swinging a weighted wooden bat, over and over and over.
"Whenever I see him on TV, I tell that story to my kids," Trautwein says. "When everyone else was taking 100 cuts, Joe was taking 500. It's as simple as that."
Last spring in Peoria, Girardi was the guest of honor to benefit the local Alzheimer's Association. It was a celebration of his career, but a bittersweet day, with his father in the terrible clutches of the disease. Angela Girardi, according to those who knew her well, was a big-hearted woman, active in an array of charitable causes. Joe and his wife, Kim, the mother of three children, are the same way, friends say.
When Girardi first joined the Yankees as a player, in 1996, he was replacing the popular Mike Stanley, and was actually booed at the team's welcome home dinner.
Three championships later, the fans were won over. Now Joe Girardi has a far more daunting task, following the patron saint of New York dugouts, Joe Torre. The folks back home suggest you not underestimate him.
Says Girardi's friend and former Little League coach, Dave Rodgers, "Joe has all the respect in the world for Joe Torre. He knows what kind of challenge this is. But he loves challenges. It's going to be awfully hard to get him down, because he's always going to find his way back up."
Good, solid man.
BASEBALL; Throughout Life’s Many Travails, the Yankees’ Girardi Is Keeping the Faith
PING ~~!
Catchers make good managers. I wish him luck...
I wish Joe the best of luck. At another team, next year. For now, he is in league with satan... ;-)
He's going to need it!
True but they were competitive until about August or so if I remember correctly. Not too bad with 22 rookies on the team.
Sounds like a good guy. My personal opinion I don’t know why anyone would work for Stienbrenner.
Good man; girly sport. Thank God it’s over for another year!
Thank God the Reds passed on him. Horrible handler of the pitchign staff. Friend who is a fan of the marlins was in agony through out his tenure at the marlins because he was clueless as to how to handle the pitchers.
Of course the Reds picked up the WORST handler of the pitching staff. Dusty “aces arms a dragging” Baker.... Ugh.
a good manager is a good start....
now we need a good third baseman/first baseman...and shore up the holes in the pitching rotation!!!!
The new Joe will be a winner for the Yanks.
rhymes with Class Mole."
rhymes with "Class Mole."
I happen to know Joe Girardi, not real well, but we’re more than just acquaintances. He is a gem of a human being, with a delightful family (two years ago when his son was five, the boy could field and hit better than most twelve year olds), and a degree of intelligence that’s truly impressive.
He’ll make a fantastic manager for the Yankees, as long as he learns a little bit about the care and feeding of upper management, which was his only weak spot with the Marlins.
All is well in Yankeeland. I don’t know why fans are so glum! The most overrated manager in baseball history, St. Torre, is finally gone. And the black hole of egos, The Lightning Rod, is gone too. Good riddance to both! Time for a passionate tough-ass like Girardi to shake things up in the clubhouse. I think they should also bring Paul O’Neill in as bench coach.
Or even Batting Coach. I've often stated that the heart went out of that Yankees team the day that O'Neil hung up his playing spikes. He was the heart and soul of that great team during the 90's
MM
Your friend is clueless regarding Girardi’s ability to handle a pitching staff both as a catcher and a manager.
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