Girardi Managing Heartache

Joe Girardi will be entering his 1st spring training as Yankees manager with some mixed feelings. No, not about being the manager, about leaving his father behind. Jerry Girardi suffers from Alzheimer's and has been steadily declining over the last couple of years. A once robust man, he's 40 pounds lighter since he forgets to eat most of the time.

When Girardi got ready to leave Illinois to head south a couple of weeks ago, he went to see his Dad, who is a resident in an assisted-care facility. When he left he knew it might be the last time he saw the man who influenced his life so much.

“He doesn’t talk,” Girardi said. “But I felt like there were two seconds when I left and said, ‘I love you, Dad,’ he responded. He said, ‘I like you.’ I just felt like he looked at me different for two seconds. That’s big for me.”

“It was like there was a connection, which, in a sense, scares me because I think that maybe he’s close,” Girardi said. “But having him say it gave me a good feeling.”

Girardi barely held back tears as he spoke to NY Times reporter Jack Curry about his Dad's ordeal. He then went on to talk about how much managing the Yankees means to him, the differences between his style and that of Joe Torre, whom he deeply respects and admires.

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