Girardi in Phils pinstripes ... divine intervention?

PHILADELPHIA >> On a clear day, after more than half of a lifetime in major league baseball, maybe you really can see forever. Joe Girardi more or less said so Monday, in his first public unveiling as Phillies manager.

“I interviewed a number of times,” Girardi said, speaking of his two interviews for the Phillies’ job plus multiple interviews he’d had in Chicago and New York in recent weeks. “But I’m a faithful man and this is where I really believe God meant me to be.”

As if speaking to a large room of non-believers, then, Girardi tapped his well-practiced memory and listed examples of his Phillies connections. So what if he hails from Peoria, Ill., was drafted by his hometown Cubbies, never played for the Phillies during a 15-year major league career and is only now getting his first job in their organization after 11 seasons as a manager, one as a coach and three years as a baseball broadcaster, the past two years as an analyst for Fox and MLB TV?

To him, it still seems like kismet.

“I started to look for signs where I might end up because I really wanted to manage again,” Girardi said. “I got calls from people and it started triggering all these things that I thought about. I used to watch Larry Bowa. I grew up near Chicago when he was the Cubs shortstop in 1984. Obviously, I cheered for him a lot. Him and Sarge, Gary Matthews. And then I fast forward to 1986, my lovely wife and I are just starting to date and I went and watched the Phillies play the Cubs at Wrigley Field. She got a home run ball, hit by a Phillie player. We were in the bleachers before it was cool to sit in the bleachers and someone else went to get the ball and she stepped on his hand. She grabbed the ball and I said, ‘Babe!’ And she’s like, ‘Well, I don’t know how many more chances I’m going to get to get a big-league baseball.’”

Then with a look at his wife sitting in the front row of the interview room, Girardi added, “Well, you’ve had a lot over the years.”

He quickly cited other connections. Former Phillies manager Pete Mackanin was Girardi’s minor league manager who told him the news when he first got called up to the Cubs. His first hit in the majors came off the Phillies’ Floyd

Youmans. The first player he threw out trying to steal? Bobby Dernier.

“It just continued and continued,” Girardi said. “(Former Phils manager) Jim Fregosi, I asked him about Raul Ibanez and he said, ‘Be patient, older guys take a little bit longer in spring training.’ My wife and I did camps with Vuke, John Vukovich, who was a dear friend of ours and Gary Matthews was there as well . ... I think, ‘OK, what’s going to happen in my life, what’s next?’ And I’m thinking, ‘Man, I got all these Phillies ties.’ And I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here, because I feel like this is part of who I am.”

Even if it wasn’t so much religious relevation as anticipated reaction, the Phillies’ brass also saw Girardi as a manager meant to work at Citizens Bank Park. Last Thursday, they signed him to a three-year contract that carries a club option for 2023. He’s a (just turned) 55-year-old guy who simply checked all the boxes in what owner John Middleton and his front office underlings had been looking for in a Gabe Kapler upgrade.

A blend of new and old-school, data and discipline. Nicknamed “Binder Joe” early in his 10-year New York tenure for his work in turning the Yankees’ research and development work into beneficial baseball results on the field, Girardi was considered a players manager like Kapler, except one with a proven track record of making moves from the gut and strict adherence to the rules.

“I do embrace it,” Girardi said when asked about educating himself on the advancement of analytics. “It is important to me because numbers tell a story over time. They really do. I’m an analytical guy that has an engineering degree, that loves the math, and they can never give me too much information.”

That alone didn’t sell him to the Phillies, though it certainly helped.

“We covered a lot of topics in the interviews. We had 25 different people who met with Joe in his second interview,” general manager Matt Klentak said. “Among the 25 of us, we covered just about all topics. Discipline, accountability, getting the most out of a team. These are things that you are going to look for in any manager. What is helpful when you bring in somebody like Joe Girardi, you don’t have to ask him how he would do it. You can ask him how he DID do it.”

For Girardi, there was something more to offer than merely what his resume and references could provide. There was, if you believe what he was preaching Monday, almost a fulfillment of fate.

“I grew up in the era of playing against the Phillies in the ‘90s when they were great with Darren Daulton and John Kruk, who ran me over in 1991 and broke my nose and visited me in the hospital as I was going through that,” Girardi said. “I’m well aware of the importance of winning in this town. I had a chance to manage against a (Phillies) team in the 2000s that was great. You think about the ‘90s, they were great. The 2000s they were great and this team has a history of being successful and I’m selfish. I want to win. That’s why I came here.”

His selection, made over respected baseball men in 70-yearold Dusty Baker and 63-yearold Buck Showalter, was a bit of a no-brainer. Girardi was an onfield leader of some great Yankees teams in the ‘90s. He was manager of the year in his one season in Florida, his first major-league managerial job in 2006, which ended after that season primarily because he found a way to tick off volatile (to be nice) owner Jeffrey Loria.

Then came the 10 years in New York, what Girardi called his “dream job,” during which his team beat the Phillies in the 2009 World Series, made six trips to the playoffs, and always finished with a winning record.

He cashed on his popularity as the hard-working catcher, honed his people skills, maintained a relationship with retiring owner George Steinbrenner, who handed over day-to-day operations to sons Hal (now principal owner and managing partner) and Hank prior to Girardi being hired in Oct. 2007.

If all that wasn’t enough experience, Girardi has had at least a partial view of what he’s inheriting in Philadelphia gained from the past couple of years in the broadcast booth.

“Every time I (broadcast) a Phillies game – I did one in May, June and August – there was a whole different cast of characters,” Girardi said. “So it’s really hard to survive when your bullpen doesn’t stay healthy. Obviously, addressing that is really important. There are starters here that I believe have a lot of ability and it’s our job to get the most out of them.”