Another Reason To Like Joe Girardi

“It can’t happen. You can’t just start taking pot shots because you disagree with the way the system is set up. … I want (the players) to come out (of the dugout). As I’ve said all along, you may not agree with the way Major League Baseball is handling this or that — that’s everyone’s opinion, and I respect that; I’m OK with that — but that’s your teammate, and we don’t allow people just to get plunked.”

A lot of Yankees fans hate Joe Girardi. While a lot of it is unwarranted, there are some valid criticisms as well. His penchant to go "by the binder" being one of them. Although, Joe gets bashed for not going by the book a lot of times too, which goes to show that you just can't win with some people.

Anyway...

That quote at the beginning of this post is from the Joe Girardi at the press conference last night, and hearing that makes me really happy. In fact, it's something that should make every Yankee fan stop and say "even though I don't always agree with him, Girardi is a good manager".

“Ryan Dempster has hit six guys in the last 320 innings. He threw the first ball behind (Alex Rodriguez), intentional. He threw the next one inside, he didn’t hit him, intentional. At some point Brian O’Nora has got to give him a warning. And he should’ve thrown him out of the game is the bottom line. Everyone knows it was intentional and I don’t understand why he’s left in the game and then to give us a warning? Brian and I have a long history together back in A ball, Double A, and I respect him. But that was wrong. 

“And the one thing you can’t do is you can’t start changing the system because maybe you don’t like it. Ryan Dempster has been a player rep and has been very involved in the union. He knows these guys, this is what they decided to do, so you can’t change it just take your pot shots. And you’d have to have your head in the sand with the comments that came from the other side not to know that something might be up. I thought it was handled very poorly and I was upset about yesterday because calls went against us that changed the complexion of the game. Then you have this. It’s just flat wrong.”

You've surely already seen what happened, with Ryan Dempster clearly trying to hit Alex Rodriguez (if not, go here). One of the things a good manager does is back his players, and Girardi clearly showed that he'll go to bat for any of his.

The Yankees' front office has made it clear that they are not fans of ARod. And I'm sure ARod is not a fan of them either. I'm also sure there are plenty of players, and possibly coaches, that would rather not have Mr. Rodriguez on the team. But he is a Yankee, and that means he's part of the family. You know, like that cousin that everybody knows is a piece of garbage, but he's still invited to family events. Joe Girardi understands this, and will fight for his family.

Again, love him or hate him, you can see why I have defended Joe a number of times. I don't like everything he does, but I didn't like everything that Joe Torre did either. However, just like I felt lucky to have Torre around all those years, times like last night remind me that we're all lucky to have Joe Girardi running the Yankees.

One last quote from Girardi last night...

“You can’t start throwing at people. Lives — people have had concussions — lives are changed by getting hit by pitches. Whether I agree with everything that’s going on, you do not throw at people and you don’t take the law into your own hands. You don’t do that. We’re going to skip the judicial system? It’s My Cousin Vinny.”

"Everything that guy, Bryan, just said is NOT bull****. Thank you."