Joe Girardi

Joe Girardi caught David Cone's perfect game. He caught Dwight Gooden's no-hitter. He won three rings as a Yankee catcher in the 1990s, then came back nine years later and won a fourth as the guy running the dugout. His 910 wins as manager rank sixth all-time in franchise history -- behind only McCarthy, Torre, Stengel, Huggins, and Houk, which is about as good company as a former Yankees catcher from Peoria could ever ask for.

The Northwestern Kid Who Wasn't Supposed to Be a Star

Girardi grew up in Peoria, Illinois, and went to Northwestern University -- not exactly a college baseball factory. He was a two-time All-Big Ten pick and a three-time Academic All-American, which tells you everything about how this guy operated even at 20 years old: heady, prepared, over-prepared if anything. The Cubs took him in the fifth round of the 1986 draft. Nobody was circling him as a future face of a franchise. He debuted with Chicago in 1989, the Cubs left him unprotected in the 1992 expansion draft, and he spent three seasons in Colorado before the Rockies shipped him to the Yankees for pitcher Mike DeJean after the 1995 season.

That trade is one of the quieter heists of the dynasty era. DeJean had a fine career. Girardi caught three championships.

Battery Mate to History

Here's the part of Girardi's playing résumé that gets buried under the manager stuff: within a three-year window, he caught two of the most improbable pitching performances in franchise history. On May 14, 1996, he was behind the plate for Dwight Gooden's no-hitter -- a guy who'd missed most of 1994 and all of 1995 on suspension and was running an 11.48 ERA through three starts that year. On July 18, 1999, it was David Cone's perfect game, and by most accounts Cone specifically wanted Girardi calling that game. Two of the wildest pitching outcomes in Yankees history, same catcher, three summers apart. That's freakin' remarkable, honestly. That's not luck. That's a guy pitchers trusted with the baseball.

Girardi wasn't the offensive engine of those 1996, 1998, and 1999 title teams -- he hit .272/.317/.361 over four Yankees seasons, and his postseason numbers (.205 in 31 games) won't wow anybody. That was never the job. He called games, blocked the plate, and handled a pitching staff that included Cone, David Wells, and Andy Pettitte. A backup catcher named Jorge Posada was waiting in the wings the whole time, and when Girardi left as a free agent after 1999, the job -- and the next decade of Yankees catching -- belonged to him.

He never made an All-Star team in pinstripes -- his one career selection came in 2000 with the Cubs, as an injury replacement for Mike Piazza (who'd just taken a Roger Clemens fastball to the head). Girardi didn't even play in that game. Somehow the most memorable Girardi moment involving the Clemens-Piazza saga still had nothing to do with the bat he was carrying.

From the Booth to the Dugout

Girardi's career after the Yankees released him didn't go in a straight line. He finished playing with the Cubs and Cardinals through 2003, took a year off the field entirely, and joined the YES Network as a broadcaster in 2004. Then Joe Torre brought him back as Yankees bench coach in 2005 -- one year, learning the operation from the inside.

In 2006, he got his first managing job with the Florida Marlins and immediately made it look easy: 78-84 with a shoestring payroll, and he won National League Manager of the Year. The Marlins fired him anyway that October. (He'd also nearly gotten canned mid-season for telling owner Jeffrey Loria to knock it off after Loria heckled an umpire from the stands -- Girardi stood up for the guy in blue and almost lost his job for it. Then he won an award and lost the job regardless. Baseball is a strange business.)

He went back to the YES booth in 2007. That fall, the Yankees needed a new manager after Torre walked away rather than take a pay cut following a third straight first-round exit. The finalists were Girardi, Tony Peña, and Don Mattingly. Girardi's fresh Manager of the Year hardware gave him the edge, and on October 30, 2007, the Yankees brought their old catcher back -- this time in charge.

2009: The One That Counted

Girardi's first Yankees season, 2008, was a bridge year -- the club missed the playoffs for the first time since 1993, playing out the string at the old Stadium before it closed for good. Nobody remembers that part. What they remember is 2009.

The Yankees swept Minnesota in the ALDS, beat the Angels in six in the ALCS, and knocked off the Phillies in six to win the 2009 World Series -- the franchise's 27th title, its first since 2000, and Girardi's only ring as a manager. CC Sabathia anchored the rotation Girardi had pushed the front office to build in free agency that winter (Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Mark Teixeira all arrived together), and it worked immediately. Girardi went from a .272-hitting catcher who caught two of the wildest games in team history to championship manager in barely a decade.

That's the ring. It's also, weirdly, the only one -- across ten years running the most scrutinized dugout in sports, Girardi got there once and never got back.

Six Trips, One Parade

The Yankees made the playoffs six times under Girardi and only broke through that one October. The near-misses piled up in ways that still sting if you lived through them:

The 2017 ending is the part Yankees fans still argue about. Girardi went 91-71 that season, got a young roster further than anyone expected, and still got the boot. Owner Hal Steinbrenner later said the decision "had to do with 2-3 years, and observing things and hearing things" -- meaning it wasn't really about that one October at all, and Girardi would've been out even with a title. Cashman wanted a fresh voice for the young core taking shape around Aaron Judge and catcher Gary Sanchez. (I get the logic. I still think a manager with a 910-710 record and a ring deserved a warmer exit than a press release citing "connectivity.")

He wasn't unemployed long. Girardi managed the Phillies from 2020 through most of 2022, going 132-141 before getting fired that June with the team at 22-29. He never got back to October in Philadelphia. The 2009 ring remains the only one on his managerial resume -- but across three jobs, he finished with roughly 1,120 career wins, a Manager of the Year award, and a rare distinction only a couple of Yankees have ever pulled off: a World Series champion at the plate AND in the dugout, both times wearing the same uniform.

The kid from Peoria who did his homework at Northwestern ended up catching two of the wildest games in franchise history and managing his old team to a championship a decade later. Four rings, two uniforms' worth of jobs, one guy. Girardi earned every bit of it.