Joe Girardi, Stratford Woman's Super Hero
Manager played good Samaritan on way home from Stadium
By JOSH ALPER
Updated 2:56 PM EST, Thu, Nov 5, 2009
It's not hard to find stories gushing with praise about various Yankees on Thursday. While it wouldn't be a surprise to see some overzealous Yankee rooter credit Alex Rodriguez with solving the health care conundrum, the only story we've seen that has actual real-world implications deals with Joe Girardi's ride home early Thursday morning, and what he did for a Connecticut woman.
The woman is Marie Henry, 27, of Stratford, Connecticut, ESPN reports. She'd crashed into a wall on the Cross County Parkway in Westchester and Girardi happened upon it shortly after 2 a.m. and helped flag down police officers who were responding to the scene. The cops had congratulated Girardi moments before when they waived him through a DUI checkpoint. We'll leave the questions about why you'd wave through guys who were just in a very public champagne soaked party -- Andy Pettitte also made his way through without incident -- and get to the details of Girardi's activities after he happened upon a woman who had lost control of her car and plowed into a wall.
The area is notorious for its blind spots, and Girardi, who had parked his car along the right side of the parkway, and then run across the traffic to get to the injured motorist, put his life at risk, police said."He could have gotten killed," county Sgt. Thomas McGurn said, adding that responding police units take extra precaution in that area because of the blind curve and speeding cars. "Traffic goes by at 80 mph."
By the time cops arrived, Henry had gotten out of the car, shaken up but not hurt, the Journal News reports. She thanked him and watched as he again crossed traffic, and continued on his way. Henry did not know who that pinstriped man was until the cop told her, The Journal News reports.
It's unknown whether or not Girardi tried to get a different police officer to help out on the scene based on McGurn's spotty performance with helping people after accidents in 2003 Toyota Camrys. We kid, and we can because the driver of the car was fine and because it's pretty great that Girardi took the time to do the right thing.
Strangely enough, reading what McGurn said about how he could have gotten killed also got us thinking about the criticism Girardi took here and elsewhere for some of his managerial moves this October. Girardi made a lot of decisions during the games that led to the Yankees 27th championship. Some of them worked out, while others fell flat and contributed to losses. After seeing his emotional reaction to winning on Wednesday night, it was hard to believe that he didn't make all of them because he thought they were going to help the team gain victories and a lot of them didn't work out because, at the end of the day, baseball doesn't always work out the way they hoped.
Girardi stuck his neck out several times in the playoffs. Judging from the choice he made early Thursday morning, that's his nature in life as well.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.
First Published: Nov 5, 2009 2:29 PM EST
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