Joe Girardi reportedly ripped Yankees before Derek Jeter's last home game
The Yankees players had parting gifts for Derek Jeter before Thursday's game, the retiring shortstop's last home game at Yankee Stadium, but manager Joe Girardi preceded the festivities with a "scathing critique" of this year's team, ESPNNewYork.com's Wallace Matthews and Andrew Marchand reported on Saturday.
The manager was reportedly disappointed that the Yankees missed the playoffs for a second consecutive season for the first time since 1992-93.
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Girardi chided some players for being overweight and not being "hungry" enough, sources told Matthews and Marchand. The report added that most of the players spoke anonymously for "fear of angering their manager."
Girardi was already angry on Saturday when he heard the meeting had become public.
"I'll tell you what really bothers me, and I'm not blaming you," he said to the reporter who confronted him about the meeting. "It's that ... it's not right that the meetings you have in the clubhouse get out of the clubhouse."
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One of the sources in the report categorized Girardi as "angry" during the meeting and said the manager stopped his message briefly to allow the players to give Jeter an original painting of The New Yorker cover depicting Jeter tipping his cap to the stadium and an expensive watch.
"It was a speech the likes of which I've never heard him give before," said the source, according to the report. "It's something he probably should have said back in spring training."
Girardi said he was not angry in his message, but rather "disappointed."
"I'm not going to go into what I talked about," Girardi said on Saturday, according to the report. "Write whatever you want.
"I addressed the team just to let them know what I expected of them next year. I think that obviously there's a lot of disappointment when you don't make the playoffs. And the expectation is, the reason you play the game, is to make the playoffs and win the World Series. We need to get better, and I let them know that."
Girardi, who turns 50 next month, is 647-486 (.571) in seven seasons managing the Yankees, winning the 2009 World Series and making four postseason appearances.
Jeter and Brett Gardner refused to speak about the meeting on Saturday, and Stephen Drew said it was nothing he hadn't heard from a manager before.
- Chris Mascaro
