“One of the toughest players I’ve ever been around” • 07.25.10
On the day Andre Dawson, Whitey Herzog, Doug Harvey, Jon Miller and New York’s own Bill Madden take their places in Cooperstown, this seems a good time to share Joe Girardi’s lasting impressions of The Hawk, his old teammate in Chicago.
“My first memories stand pretty tall,” Girardi said. “I was fresh out of A-ball in big league camp. My locker was between him and Vance Law, and that was somewhat intimidating. Hawk was somewhat of an intimidating figure, but a real nice, gentle man. Tried to teach me the game. One of the toughest players I’ve ever been around in my life. His knee surgeries he considered to be a 20-minute oil change a Jiffy Lube. He would walk out of the hospital. The power that he generated. His arm strength. I was fortunate enough that he was around almost every day that I was with the Marlins, helping our young hitters.”
From myself, congratulations to Bill. I was with him for a while on the night he got the news. It was a pretty neat experience for me. I can’t imagine how he was feeling.
