Major League Baseball

Girardi craves sugar cereal

Published May. 26, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

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Joe Girardi recalls being about 8 when a train derailed behind his grandparents' farm and left enough stray boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal to feed him and his four siblings for a full year.

What a treat that became. The kids typically only got sugar cereal on the weekends, but this was the exception.

''It was the only year we got sugar cereals during the week,'' Girardi said Saturday, teasing the media that they had interrupted his morning cereal ritual.

These days, Girardi is lactose intolerant, so the New York Yankees manager often snacks on the sugary cereals sans milk during road trips considering most visiting clubhouses don't keep a lactose-free variety in the fridge.

''My mother lived on a farm when she was growing up and behind the farm was a train track,'' the New York Yankees manager said Saturday. ''When I was a kid my mom's family still basically owned the house. A train derailed and one of the cars was full of Cap'n Crunch. We had so much Cap'n Crunch over the next year it was amazing. To this day I still like Cap'n Crunch. It's rough on the roof of your mouth.''

He insists he only needs a handful to get his fix.

''Most of my cereal I put protein powder on,'' he said.

But he still loves to treat himself with a bowl of Cap'n Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms or Honey Nut Cheerios - the latter being his choice before Saturday afternoon's middle game against the Oakland Athletics.

Girardi said he doesn't remember whether the owner of all that cereal ever came looking for the Cap'n Crunch, which his uncles packed back to the house.

''I don't know what happened. I didn't ask questions, I was like 8 years old,'' he said. ''It was all Cap'n Crunch, the regular, no berries. We had a lot. It lasted a year in our house and there were five of us.''

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