By TYLER KEPNER
The New York Times
Published: October 31, 2007
New York Yankees' Joe Torre and Joe Girardi, right, look on during spring training baseball in this March 1, 2005 file photo in Tampa, Fla.
As a rookie catcher in 1989, Joe Girardi helped guide the Chicago Cubs to the playoffs. His biggest advocate was the Cubs’ colorful manager, Don Zimmer, who sometimes wondered if he was too hard on the 24-year-old engineering graduate from Northwestern.
“One time he had a bruised thumb, and he had that big plastic thing on it so it wouldn’t get bruised more,” Zimmer said from his home in Florida yesterday, after listening with pride to Girardi’s first news conference as the manager of the Yankees.
“He went to reach for a ball with a runner on third, and the ball bounced off his glove and went to the backstop, and I was hot. I mean, he was a young kid, but I got on his rear end and I said, ‘If you want to catch for me the rest of the year, you’ll catch without a plastic guard on that thumb!’
“After I did that, the next day I felt bad, because I really jumped on him, and when you do that to some guys, they melt on you.”
Girardi did not melt. He was highly educated, an avid chess player since age 5, but he was not a stereotypical egghead.
Girardi was tough, right down to the flat-top haircut, and over many years of wearing baseball uniforms — first for the Cubs, then for the Colorado Rockies, then for the Yankees — he became so close with Zimmer that Zimmer said, “He’s almost like a son to me.”
Zimmer quit the Yankees after the 2003 World Series, fed up with second-guessing from the team’s principal owner, George Steinbrenner, and he was not pleased with the way the Yankees handled Joe Torre’s exit.
So Zimmer stayed away from advising Girardi on whether to take the Yankees job, which Girardi accepted yesterday with a three-year, $7.8 million contract. But in Girardi’s first year as manager, for the Florida Marlins in 2006, Zimmer was a confidant.
“We would talk baseball — ‘Would you do this? Would you do that?’ — a little bit of everything,” Zimmer said. “Everything that concerns baseball, we would talk about it. I would tell him what I would do. That doesn’t mean he took everything I told him, but he always asked me questions, and I always gave him answers.”
Players with an intellectual bent can stand out in a baseball clubhouse. Many players have signed contracts out of high school and, understandably, resent condescending teammates. But Girardi, who played until 2003, was less brainy than inquisitive. Teammates saw that as an important distinction.
“Everyone knew he was smart, but he was one of the guys,” the former Yankees reliever Mike Stanton said yesterday. “He didn’t talk down to you. If there was something you didn’t understand, he would explain it. But intelligence doesn’t mean you know everything. Sometimes, it means knowing when to ask a question instead of faking it.”
On the Yankees’ title teams of the 1990s, Stanton said, Girardi was a leader of the best kind: he had an exemplary work ethic but would also challenge pitchers if he noticed their concentration wane. Pitchers always knew that Girardi, a .267 career hitter, put their needs first.
“The way he handled pitchers, I really thought he gave himself up a lot for them,” said Don Baylor, who managed Girardi with the Rockies and the Cubs. “He was a team guy. He put the pitchers before himself.
“I always thought he had the capability to manage if he really wanted to. I told him a couple of times: ‘Keep score here. Look around, because someday, you’re going to be doing this on your own.’ ”
Girardi retired after playing for the Yankees in spring training in 2004. He returned as the bench coach in 2005 and was a regular in the weight room before games; Stanton said he was in even better shape than he was as a player.
As a bench coach, Girardi was meticulous, keeping a binder during games to track tendencies and strategies. He streamlined the information for scouting meetings, making it easy for the catchers to understand the game plan.
When he interviewed for the Marlins’ managing job in October 2005, Girardi studied intensely and quickly won over their owner, Jeffrey Loria. But the Marlins promptly slashed payroll to $15 million after promising Girardi the cuts would not be so extensive, and their relationship was doomed.
Girardi instituted a Yankees-style policy of no facial hair, and he outran many of his players in spring training wind sprints. He coaxed 78 victories out of the team, but his downfall came in August, when he shouted down Loria, who was screaming at the umpire from his box beside the dugout. Girardi was nearly fired then, but Loria waited until the season ended.
“Joe is not returning because it was not a good fit,” General Manager Larry Beinfest said at the time, adding later, “We felt that Joe was not able to integrate himself into the workings of our organization.”
Girardi has never directly returned fire to the Marlins, and he has not discussed the particulars, even with friends. John Flaherty, who caught for the Yankees in 2005 and worked with Girardi for the YES Network, said Girardi was always vague about it.
“I think what really came out of it was that he learned some things about ownership and the front office and the manager all having to get along,” Flaherty said. “But it was very, very vague, nothing specific on what happened.”
After working with Girardi, Flaherty once found himself wondering if there was something wrong with him. Like Girardi, Flaherty is a retired catcher with a young family and enough money to last a lifetime. But unlike Girardi, Flaherty has no desire to be in a dugout anymore.
“With him, or even with a Joe Torre, I think it’s that competitiveness, that desire to compete during a ballgame,” Flaherty said. “You could definitely see it in Girardi. He missed being on the field.”
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