Yankee manager’s son spends Father’s Day in Riverhead
Dante Girardi won’t see his father, Joe, until much later this Father’s Day.
Joe Girardi is in Washington, D.C. right now, hoping to lead his New York Yankees to a sweep over the Washington Nationals.
Dante, meanwhile, is looking for a sweep of his own this weekend. His U-11 Cubs travel baseball team is 4-0 and laying for the title right now in the Future Big Leaguers Tournament Series at Stotzky Park in Riverhead.
The Cubs, based out of Harrison, N.Y., won two games against North Fork kids on a travel baseball team named after his pop’s Yankees team Sunday.
Dante, Joe’s only son, even had the chance to wear a replica of one of his father’s big league uniforms this weekend. Joe Girardi played seven seasons in two stints with the Chicago Cubs, including an All-Star campaign in 2000. But New Yorkers are most likely to know Dante’s dad as a catcher on three Yankees world championship teams and the manager of the team’s most recent World Series winner in 2009.
While Dante played catcher, among other positions in the tournament, he did not wear one of his father’s numbers. Instead, he wore the No. 2 of his dad’s former teammate and current captain, Derek Jeter.