The day after officially being named Yankees manager, Joe Girardi spent the day trick-or-treating with his three kids near their home in Florida. As he and his wife Kim were preparing to take the kids out, his son Dante told everyone to wait and ran back upstairs.
Dante, who turns 6 on Monday, changed out of the Dale Earnhardt Jr. costume he had been talking about for two months to put on his Yankees uniform in celebration of his father’s new job.
Girardi’s appointment as manager has been a celebration for his entire family from his children to his father Jerry, who is in his mid-70s and battling the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease in an assisted-living facility.
Girardi got emotional at his introductory press conference yesterday when talking about his father, who he said hadn’t spoken for a month until a caregiver showed his father a picture of Girardi being chosen as the Yankees manager.
“Oh, yeah,” Girardi said his dad responded.
His wife sat next to him yesterday and talked about the last few weeks.
“It’s just been an exciting whirlwind,” she said. “Our heart is here. We love New York and we’re thrilled to be back. It’s hard to even put it into words.”
After being fired by the Marlins last year, Girardi had a brief flirtation with the Cubs and Nationals, then decided to spend the year away from the dugout and with his father, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 12 years ago.
“We just had made the commitment to spend the year with our family and we felt that was the best thing to do,” Kim said. “Those moments you can’t get back and you don’t know how long people are going to be around.”
Girardi met with print reporters after his formal press conference yesterday and talked about how valuable the time with his father was to him this summer.
“Every time I get to see my father, I don’t know if it’s going to be the last time,” he said.
The Girardis arrived in New York yesterday morning and took a tour of the new Yankee Stadium before the press conference.
Despite his negotiations with the Dodgers in recent weeks, Girardi said Yankee Stadium was where he wanted to manage all along.
“This is where we wanted to be,” he said. “Ultimately, this is where we wanted to end up. We didn’t know when it would happen but it was just something for our family it was a dream of ours.
“This is the place to be. For the Girardis, this place is home.”