Yankees leader a chess player

Yankees Leader Inspires Crowd To Help Others

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.

Here is the full story.