World Series hits home: Yankees manager 
has roots with local farmer

DEER GROVE – Although he could have worked another 40-or-so precious acres in this record-late harvest, Dean Perino shut down his farm equipment Wednesday evening to watch a baseball game.

Perino had a feeling his cousin would lead the New York Yankees to a World Series championship. He wanted to be watching when manager Joe Girardi broke his trademark austerity and smiled on national television with the Yankees’ trophy No. 27 held high above his head.

“I parked the combine. I wanted to watch this,” Perino said.

With Wednesday’s World Series win over the Philadelphia Phillies, Girardi has four championship rings, three as a player and one as a manager, but “he never forgot where he came from,” Perino said.

Girardi has roots in the Sauk Valley, and comes back to visit often, Perino said. Recent family photos show the Perinos tooling around the Deer Grove farm with Girardi.

“Joe’s wife loves the four-wheeler,” Perino said.

His maternal aunt, Marge Perino, who spent summers in Deer Grove baby-sitting a young Girardi, now lives in rural Sterling. (She declined to be interviewed.) Her daughter, Girardi’s cousin Rose Perino, works for Sauk Valley Newspapers in Sterling.

Girardi’s late mother was the daughter of an Italian railroad switchman named Perino who worked on the rails near Deer Grove, and spent his savings to buy farmland in the area.

Angela Perino Girardi, Joe Girardi’s mother and Dean’s aunt, is buried in Tampico. His father is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease in a nursing home east of Peoria. An uncle lives near the Whiteside County Airport.

Perinos live and work all over the country – an uncle phoned Dean Perino from Berkeley, Calif., during the eighth inning to say, “Hope you’re watching.”

“Over the years, Joe has been so good to us,” Perino said.

Dean Perino recently installed a big-screen TV that Girardi had shipped to Marge, Rosie’s mom, his surrogate mother in Sterling. The family always has tickets when the Yankees play in the Midwest. Dean and his wife, Julie Perino, saw Pope Benedict at Yankee Stadium, courtesy of Girardi.

“He’s been able to share his good fortune,” Perino said. “He’s down-to-earth.”