World Series comes home to Walnut

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

The Bureau County ties of J.A. Happ and Chad Durbin have been well discussed over the past two years as the two Philadelphia Phillies pitchers chased the World Series championship.

There was another tie to Bureau County in this year’s fall classic.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi has deep roots established here. His late mother, Angela Perino Girardi, grew up in a family of 15 in Normandy, and they all attended Walnut schools. Their father was an Italian railroad switchman who worked the rails around Normandy.

Shirley Noble of Walnut, who was one year behind Angela Perino (Class of ‘52) in school at Walnut, said, “They were nice people.”

Angela Perino died when the Yankees manager, 45, was a teenager in Peoria. She is buried in Tampico.

The Perino clan is scattered all throughout north central Illinois.

One family member, Dean Perino of Deer Grove parked his combine for the evening to watch Girardi, his cousin, hoist the Yankees 27th World Series trophy.

“I parked the combine. I wanted to watch this,” Perino told Shaw News Service.

There are recent family photos with Girardi on the Perino family farm in Deer Grove.

Perino says his cousin has been “good to us over the years and been able to share his good fortune.”

Perino recently installed a big-screen TV Girardi had shipped to his aunt, Marge Perino, his surrogate mother, who lives in Sterling.

When the Bronx Bombers come to the Midwest, the Perino family always has tickets available compliments of the Yankees’ skipper. Dean Perino would have made the trip to St. Louis had the Cardinals got into the World Series against the Yankees.

A group of Catholics from the Ohio-Walnut parish, including Dean and Julie Perino, took a bus trip to see Pope Benedict at Yankee Stadium through their connections with Girardi.

• Monday’s the day J.A. Happ finds out if he completes his hat trick when Major League Baseball announces its Rookie of the Year winners. He’s already been chosen as the top N.L. Rookie by the Sporting News and the MLB Player’s Choice, and is the front-runner for the official MLB award voted by the Baseball Writers of America.

Happ (12-4) tied the Cubs’ Randy Wells (12-10) for most wins by a rookie pitcher in the N.L. and his 2.99 ERA is second only to the Braves’ Tommy Hanson’s 2.89.

There’s also some worthy rookies with some offensive punch. The Pirates Garrett Jones slugged .567 and hit 21 homers after his July 1 recall; Florida’s Chris Coghlan led all N.L. rookies with a .321 average, 31 doubles and 84 runs scored; and the Brewers’ Casey McGehee had a league-high 66 RBIs among rookies.

I think Happ’s the guy, and so did the Sporting News and all the ballplayers polled for the Players’ Choice Award.

• She’s in: Congrats to Spring Valley’s Carrie Riordan, who has qualified for the Duramed FUTURES Tour of the LPGA. She tied for 38th place with a 9-over-par 369 last week on courses in Winter Haven, Lakeland and Davenport, Fla.

Kevin Hieronymus is the sports editor at the BCR. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com.