

Joe Girardi begins his fifth consecutive season as Yankees manager, second only to Joe Torre since 1973. Associated Press


Yet this season will be Joe Girardi's fifth in a row as manager, making him the second longest-tenured Yankee manager on a consecutive basis since 1973, surpassed only by his predecessor Joe Torre.

Only eight managers in baseball have been at their posts longer than Girardi. In the Derek Jeter era, the Yankees have become the very model of stability, and it's become part of the reason for their continued success.

That doesn't mean it's always been easy.

"Do I look a lot older? Oh, I do. I think I'm much different," Girardi said Monday with a smile as he reflected on his four-year tenure.

Girardi arrived in 2008 with huge expectations, replacing the legendary Torre, who left under bad circumstances. On top of replacing a four-time World Series-winning manager, Girardi was naturally less gregarious than his chatty predecessor, who never met an interview he didn't like. Girardi took some time to adjust, missing the playoffs in his first season. It took a few years to learn the nuances, he acknowledged.

"I think you have a much better understanding of how it works here and the expectations of the job. It's one thing to say you know what it's like because you watched someone else do it, but it's another to actually do it," Girardi said.

And over the years, he's grown as a leader, winning the World Series in 2009 and qualifying for the playoffs every year since.

"I think the relationships with the players are stronger. I think there's a better understanding of my players. I think there's a better understanding of managing an American League game as opposed to a National League game. So I do think I've improved," Girardi said.

But no manager exists in a vacuum, and Girardi has had it easier than perhaps any manager since George Steinbrenner took over the team in 1973.

In some ways, a Yankee manager has all the advantages. Armed with baseball's biggest payroll and a team full of stars, his task is some sense is not to mess it up.

But in others, he has a terribly difficult job. He must meet the needs of a larger, fiercer media contingent than any other franchise in baseball. He has a team of mid-career stars with large contracts and often larger egos. And he has to deal with the expectations that come with the Yankees, who under Steinbrenner always operated under a World Series-or-bust mentality.

But those expectations seem to have been tempered in recent years; under Hal Steinbrenner, who officially took over after his father passed away in 2010, the litmus test seems to have shifted to playoffs-or-bust; Hal's statement when the season ended with a first-round loss in 2011 had none of the bluster and anger that his father regularly employed in such situations.

By the time Girardi took the reins, George Steinbrenner was in the twilight of his life, and his famous furies had subsided. He entered a more certain situation than any Yankee manager in 40 years, and that gave him time to learn and grow.

Gene Michael, now a special assistant to the Yankees, understands the volatility of being a Yankee manager better than most. He was Yankee manager in both 1981 and 1982, until Steinbrenner canned him both times—and was general manager through the early 1990s, when the Yankees changed managers annually. He said the team knows by now that Girardi can and will do the job.

"Everybody has confidence in him. That's important," Michael said.

But more than that, as someone who saw the turmoil that constant change creates, Michael knows how valuable stability is.

"It helps a lot to have continuity and to have the same person in the same place, all the time. It always helps if players don't have an adjustment period with a new manager," Michael said.

Girardi is under contract through 2013, and he has expressed no desire to leave. The Yankees have expressed no desire to see him go.

Billy Martin might be shocked to see it, but the manager's chair in New York has evolved into one of the safest places in the big leagues.