JOE Girardi took the Yankees job, I assume, with a sound mind and open eyes. He was offered a lot more money to manage here than he was offered by the Dodgers, and certainly a lot more than he made with the Marlins.
You get a lot more money because there is a lot more passion with this team, a lot more interest, just a lot more everything. Girardi was a player here and a broadcaster here, so he knew how the game was played here. He could have stayed in broadcasting or waited until a job opened in a city that fits his mindset, though there is no major-league team in Ames, Iowa.
Instead, anti-Broadway Joe decided to sit in the big seat. From that throne, he decided to take on the newspaper business last year, and this season has moved on to confront the publishing industry. At this point, we can assume Girardi dislikes the Red Sox and the First Amendment equally. Watch out, movie business, you are in trouble in 2010 — that is, if you actually think Girardi will be working here in 2010.
Girardi told the world yesterday that he does not like tell-all books like the one now out about Alex Rodriguez. But he actually went further. He said he does not even understand why they exist.
“I don’t necessarily know why it has to be put in a book, unless the person volunteers it,” Girardi said. “I’ve never understood, whether it’s a book about Alex, or other people. A book about a president or whoever, I just don’t understand it. Maybe that’s short-sighted on my part, but I don’t understand it.”
So if Girardi were the Czar of the Written Word, we would never read about how the personal lives of presidents influence their decision-making. Great. Or, in the case of Rodriguez, what influences shaped the most famous baseball player in the world to be so reckless, insecure, self-destructive and egomaniacal — by the way, all elements that impact the atmosphere of Girardi’s team.
Look, you want to quibble with Selena Roberts’ reporting, go ahead. But it seems bizarre to argue about the right to publish a book about the most famous baseball player in the world. That feels just too small-minded for the person managing America’s largest team.
Girardi said he had “some issues” with Roberts’ book about A-Rod, including that, “It’s interesting how the book date got moved up now.”
This is not some conspiracy theory, Joe. This is about commerce. It is, for example, the same reason you kept negotiating with the Dodgers when the Yankees offered you your “dream job” — you wanted the dream to pay more, so you used the leverage. Sorry, was that too personal and off the field?
Initially, Girardi said, “I get tired of answering these questions” about Rodriguez, but later said he was not tired of answering the questions, but said he attacked the book because, “I worry about how it affects [Rodriguez’s] kids.”
Let’s take up both matters here: Joe, when you become the Yankees manager, you are going to answer a lot of questions you don’t want to answer, especially about the most famous, expensive player on the planet because that player, A-Rod, is a heat-seeking missile for attention. Second, I wonder if A-Rod worried how it would affect his kids when he was doing illegal drugs and cheating on their mother.
When asked if he felt similar animus toward Joe Torre’s recent book — which revealed critical clubhouse secrets about some of his players — Girardi sidestepped by saying, “My parents always taught me [to] talk about the good, be positive.” So I wonder if Selena Roberts feels that Girardi is, at present, talking about her good and being positive.
Ultimately, this probably is Girardi’s awkward way of trying to defend Rodriguez. Knowing how ungrateful Rodriguez is, however, Girardi might end up regretting the decision to support A-Rod more than spitting all over the First Amendment.