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Girardi's start with media has growing pains

Yankees manager Joe Girardi speaks with reporters before Wednesday's game against the Indians at Yankee Stadium. (Newsday/David L. Pokress / May 7, 2008)

Neil Best

8:55 PM EDT, May 8, 2008

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Joe Girardi took his place in the media hot seat when it still was warm from the soothing glow of Bigelow Joe.

On paper, though, he was as prepared as anyone could be to handle the heat.

Girardi had played in Chicago and New York, coached in New York, was Manager of the Year in Florida and worked as an analyst on local and national TV.

New York media? Bring 'em on! So, how's it going so far?

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"There are growing pains," the Yankees manager said in his office before Tuesday's game.

"It's a new guy sitting in this chair. They get used to talking to one guy for 12 years. I'm not trying to be Joe, but I'm trying to establish a relationship with the media, and it takes time."

Winning is everything, of course.

But in New York more than most places, being on good terms with journalists makes for a happier, less distracted environment for players, and keeps fans better informed about their heroes.

To that end, Girardi really is trying to be good at it, something a half-dozen people who are around him regularly told me.

That was easier in spring training, when he tried to connect informally with reporters as people in a way Torre rarely did.

Now, though, the games count, the injuries matter, and the victories have come only in spurts.

"I don't lose very well; I'll be the first one to tell you," he said. "That's part of it, too, because you're controlling your emotions five minutes after a game."

Reporters don't mind a manager who is cranky after a loss. They do mind a manager who is evasive or misleading, especially about a sensitive topic: injuries.

It was that subject that caused Girardi's worst media dust-up to date -- a tense pregame session April 30 regarding the status of Phil Hughes, which later led to a beat-reporters-only, off-the-record, air-clearing session.

Girardi waited in his office until reporters had filed their stories well after the game, another illustration he at least cares about establishing rapport.

Ken Davidoff, Newsday's baseball columnist, praised Girardi's commitment to positive media relations -- unlike his days with the Marlins, where he "pretty much bombed" with reporters.

But Davidoff said the Hughes incident was one in a series, especially about injuries, that had generated tension between the manager and reporters.

"There is no doubt that that day was not an aberration, it was a culmination," he said.

Girardi surely is more likely than Torre to want to toe the company line, and general manager Brian Cashman is no fan of public disclosures of injury information. But the manager insisted his motivation was not to hide anything.

"I wanted the doctor to tell me he couldn't make his next start before I would say, 'We're putting him on the DL,"' Girardi said. "They want it as soon as possible, and for me, I wanted to make sure I was 100 percent sure before I gave it to them."

Girardi said that was the gist of the meeting with beat reporters. "Part of being better with the media is understanding better what the media does, too," he said.

Everything Girardi does this year will be compared to Torre, and much of it is different, down to the way he walks into a room: purposefully.

His answers are far shorter than Torre's, but he has added media duties, from a weekly show on YES to interviews with MLB.com before home games to taking questions from fans on YES' Web site. He said the TV show takes only 20 minutes per week and is not a drain on his schedule.

Torre's media advice to Girardi was to be himself, which Girardi said includes genuinely caring about people. Yes, that includes those wielding pens and microphones.

"I want to see the sportswriters, the broadcasters, everyone do well in life," he said, leaning forward to speak to a guest, unlike the forever leaning-back Torre. (Or maybe he was just getting antsy.)

"Because you know what? Success is a good thing."