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Yankees Leader Inspires Crowd To Help Others

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By STEVE OTTO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 14, 2007

It's on days like this, when the sports pages are splattered with accusations of drug use and you're sick of the whole business, you need someone like Joe Girardi.

He's got the look, with his closely-cropped hair, solemn demeanor and still lean and mean physique. With a career as a major league catcher behind him and the added layer of being a major league manager with the Marlins, he is tough enough.

So when he stood up to give his first speech in Tampa, you expected a pep talk on how he was going to take the Yankees to their 27th world championship, which, by the way, is the number he picked for his uniform.

I don't know what the expectations were from the others gathered for the annual Gold Shield Foundation meeting Wednesday, but what they got from the chess playing Northwestern University engineering grad was a well thought out and moving appeal to reach out to others, especially during this holiday season.

I was sitting next to Monsignor Laurence Higgins, who was already cheered to learn Girardi had graduated from what is now called Notre Dame High School in Peoria, Ill. Now he sat and nodded at Girardi's message of caring and making a difference in the community.

Girardi had the right crowd for his appeal. The Gold Shield has been around since 1981, when George Steinbrenner organized a group of citizens to figure out a way of supporting the children of two firefighters and a police officer killed in Hillsborough County.

The organization now reaches law enforcement officers and firefighters in seven counties, including members of the Secret Service and people at MacDill Air Force Base. All of them were on hand at the affair.

The Gold Shield

The foundation is now providing assistance to spouses and children of a too-long list of fallen officers. They provide tuition, books, fees and even housing at Florida universities. You could only sit and shake your head as the list of fallen police officers and firefighters was read out loud.

Then it was time for Girardi, and I sat back, expecting the typical coach-speak speech of pitching rotations and injury reports.

"This can be such a lonely time," said the new Yankees manager, "and not just for the families of those you so generously support here." He talked about the elderly and about people in crisis. He reminded them of soldiers everywhere and of neighbors alone in empty houses.

"If everyone would take one person, one family, and reach out, think of the difference we could make. Find a solider or anyone who is alone or vulnerable right now and give them a hand or just a sign that somebody else cares."

Some Coach-Speak

Girardi took a few minutes at the end of his remarks to answer a few questions about the Yankees and the upcoming season, but he had already won over this crowd, including me.

We had chatted for a few minutes earlier and what he wanted to talk about then was his kids and coaching youth T-ball, where all of the players ran as a herd after the ball in the field. Presumably his Yankees team will play differently next season.

Whether they do or not, it's easy to see Girardi is a class act and brings some qualities you don't see and certainly don't read about that often into the world of professional baseball, a world that seems more absorbed in its own self-destruction than in being the great game that it is.

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