didionville

Didion and I were watching the Yankees last night* and Joe Girardi took part in a long interview. He was interesting, engaging, entertaining. Most of all, he really inspired hope, confidence and excitement about the upcoming season. It sure reminded us of another product of Illinois — Barack Obama. Could Joe Girardi be the Barack of baseball? Young, fresh, inspirational and ready to lead us out of a long drought. Notably, the Yankees’ last World Series title was in 2000, the same year as W’s “election.”

Calling Joe Girardi the Barack Obama of baseball might be unfair to Joe Torre. (Comparing Joe Torre to W is certainly unfair and isn’t what I want to do.) Joe T. was an unquestionably great manager, but his time with the Yankees had passed. I cannot even remotely be as complimentary about the man Barack hopes to replace. Barack replacing W is like leaving the Dark Ages and going straight to the Age of Enlightenment. The Yankees’ transition is a quite a bit more moderate, but welcome nonetheless.

And we got a hint of how Joe Girardi will perform under pressure. He kept his cool during today’s skirmish, just like Barack would do if the red phone rang at 3AM.

Here’s to looking forward to two upcoming, great late-fall events — the election of Barack and the Yankees’ 27th World Championship.

*It was the encore presentation. Being a true fan, Didion had, of course, watched it live during the day, but was nice enough to watch it again with me later.