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The Daily Northwestern > Sports
In loved ones, Joe Girardi finds team for life
NU alumni fill Girardi's support staff of family and friends
By Hunter Atkins
Published: Wednesday, January 6, 2010

After spending more than 15 years in the major leagues and managing the World Series Champion New York Yankees, it would be easy for Joe Girardi to let baseball consume his life. But relationships have always been more important to him.

Especially the one with his father.

Months after winning his first of four World Series titles in 1996, Girardi asked his father, Gerald, to join him at the podium of his Northwestern Athletic Hall of Fame induction. Joe then presented his father with his championship ring, a modest token of appreciation for the man who devoted his life to the success and well-being of his family. A child of the Great Depression and working class father of five, Gerald was never one to dwell on things or gripe, his emotions sewn tight like the stitches of a baseball. But on stage at the induction, the typically composed and unemotional father stared into the eyes of his son and tears began to swell. Then they ran.

This unbridled moment of father-son pride was one of the last of its kind.
The once-tearful father rarely opens his eyes when Joe visits him these days. When he does glance at his son, it’s as if he’s staring into thin air. Gerald began showing signs of Alzheimer’s decades ago, calling his children by the wrong name. In 2006 he was checked into an assisted living facility. With his father's conditions worsening, Joe had to take back the ring for safe keeping.

“I miss him,” said Girardi in an interview Monday. “That’s the biggest feeling that I have, just not being able to talk to my father. We shared so many wonderful memories together since I was a little boy because I went everywhere he went.”

Girardi said he enjoyed being a boy glued to his father into his 40s. “It wasn’t until the last three or four years that we haven’t been able to share a lot, and now it’s nothing.”

Joe’s memories of his father trace back to acts that may have been small at the time, but comprised a lifetime of support. Despite working three jobs, Gerald found time to be the cook for the football team at Spalding Institute in Peoria, Ill., where Joe played quarterback in high school. During Joe’s minor league days, he would grab a brown bag lunch his father packed. Gerald introduced Joe to the roaring crowds at Wrigley Field and the quaint Canadian lakes where the old man gave his son fishing tutorials.

Gerald would be upset if he let work get in the way of time with his children, so after long weeks as a salesman by day and part-time bartender by night, he would sometimes bring his children to his third job as a weekend bricklayer. Mortar was spread and red slabs were stacked, cementing the bond between father and son.

Considering these moments of closeness, it is no wonder Joe said he resembles his father. Staring into the Yankees dugout, the manager sports a crew-cut, his arms crossed, stoic and antisocial. The only sight of activity occurres along his jaw line, which bulges with each chomp of gum, and at his chest, which he swivels around from right to left as transference of nervous energy. Girardi approaches managing like a workman, baseball’s bricklayer.

Beyond the attitude Joe adopted from his father is another component playing out in his everyday life. Joe is widely known by fans for his pinstripe coding and championship rings. But those lucky enough to get closer to the Yankee know him most for caring about people in a way that extends beyond his role as a parent, manager and public figure. The intensity of the relationship between Joe and his father served as a blueprint for how Joe would approach others, a sort of guide for how to engage with people on a deeply personal level.

When he looks back on his career, Girardi does not remember what the pitch count was when he got a big hit or what runner he threw out to preserve his team’s lead. “The interesting things you remember when you’re done playing are the relationships,” he said, referencing former coaches and teammates Don Zimmer, Mike Harkey, Paul O’Neill, David Cone and Dante Bichette, who he named his son after. “I don’t remember games, I remember people.”

( cut for more, including Girardi being my favorite kind of Christian, the kind that will tell you about his 'special' relationship with the Lord, but only if you ask enough questions )

Finally, I hate a lot of the Yankees bloggers in general, but I tend to hate the "Confessions of a She-Fan" the most, but this article detailing why she's extremely sadden that David Cone isn't coming back to the Yankees announcer booth puts my feels into the dumb stock photos and videos she uses.

So. The announcing team? Is Al Leiter & Cone~!!!!111 .... and Kay, hah, but, yeah. I love Leiter's voice for real, not for the fangirlism reasons that I love Cone's. I've also decided that the reason I like Cone's voice is because he talks like David Wright. Now, let's never discuss that again.

Beckett vs. Joba = awesome.

Awwwwwwwwwwwww. So. Firstly? I love that everyone in Fenway stood up and didn't stop clapping for Papi returning. But? But. Pedro Martinez's dad died of brain cancer (last) week/this week. And, Big Papi has on his helmet "RIP #45" for Pedro's dadddddddy. Awwwwwwwww =/

Wow, Lowell hit an awesome hit off the Wall, but it only was a single. Good job, fake #11 Knoblauch.

( moar! )

NEXT FRIDAY IS ANGELS VS YANKEES, dammit Rya! you pick a bad weekend to show up, haahhahhahahaha. <3333333333333333.