Life is color-blind. Or, should I say, living is color-blind. Not sure what I mean? Then allow me to offer an example, or better yet, a story…

The Heroic Story of Joe Girardi

Hours after winning the World Series, New York Yankees manager, Joe Girardi was passing through a typical sobriety check-point setup along the George Washington Bridge. Shortly after he was stopped in line—and passed the sobriety test without any trouble—the Yankees skipper witnessed a car crash into a barrier on the other side of the freeway.

Knowing that someone could have been seriously injured and that their life might be in serious danger as well, Girardi flung open his door and sprinted across five lanes of traffic, where he then proceeded to pull a middle-aged, female driver from out of her badly-damaged car to safety. The nearby police officers came to the victim’s aid as well. An ambulance unit was called to the scene, for what eventually turned out to be mere precautionary reasons.

Had it not been for Girardi’s timely actions, the woman behind the wheel of that ill-fated automobile might have required more than just “precautionary” measures. She very well could have been seriously injured—or perhaps even worse. Maybe her car would have exploded, or perhaps another car or cars may accidentally have slammed into hers.

While Joe Girardi’s heroism certainly is to be applauded, it is not the entire reason for my mentioning the story. The main purpose behind telling this story is not to point out Girardi’s actions, but to point out the fact that he acted without any qualification or hesitation. In other words: he did not stop to think about whether he should help or not; he did not pause to consider whom he was potentially helping before deciding to proceed; he did not stop to think about whether he would receive anything in return for his altruistic actions. No; Girardi acted because it was the right thing to do and because it was what needed to be done. He did not care about the when, where, who, or why: all Joe Girardi cared about was the how… and that being how he could help.

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From the victim’s perspective, at the exact moment when Joe Girardi was pulling the woman out of her car to safety, I very much doubt that anything was going through that woman’s mind other than thoughts of absolute gratitude and appreciation. I very much doubt that, had the woman been fully alert and coherent, she would have momentarily stopped Girardi’s efforts and asked, “Excuse me, but are you a Yankee or a Red Sock? Hold on… are you a Republican or a Democrat? I need to know before I decide whether or not to allow you to continue saving my life.” Somehow, I don’t think those words would have come out of her mouth.

In the midst of a life-and-death moment, it wasn’t important that Joe Girardi was a Yankee, or that he was a New Yorker, or that he was an Italian, or that he was white. It didn’t matter that he was American, or Christian, or a male, or a Republican or Democrat. All that mattered was that he was saving her life.

Likewise, it wasn’t important whether the victim was white, or Italian, or a Yankee fan, a New Yorker, short or tall, or a Republican or Democrat. From the perspective of each individual, all that mattered was that someone’s life was on the line and that someone was there to help save that person.

Even if the woman inside the mangled car had been a huge Boston Red Sox fan, I do not think that she would have stopped Girardi from rescuing her, upon realizing that he was the Yankees skipper. I’m pretty sure that at that moment, when her life may have been flashing before her very eyes, she did not care a single bit about who it was that was saving her. Likewise, I’m pretty sure that Joe Girardi didn’t care a single bit about what kind of person he was risking his life to save.

At the moment that Girardi saw the victim’s car slam into a barrier on the other side of the highway, there was no way that the Yankees skipper could have known who was behind the wheel of that automobile. For all he knew, the driver could have been a 17-year-old kid… or it could have been a 77-year-old grandmother… or it could have been a Haitian immigrant who was coming from her second job of the day and on her way home to take care of her family… or it could have been a wealthy C.E.O. on his way home from an outing at the local country club… or it could have been a famous celebrity… or it could have been a husband and wife with two children in the backseat. Joe Girardi did not know any of that. All he knew was that someone’s life was in jeopardy and that he had to do something in order to help save that person.

And that right there is the point: the fact that it didn’t matter who was driving that car, that it didn’t matter whose life needed saving. Joe Girardi saw that someone was in need of help—that someone’s life was in need of saving—and that he was the one who could do something to help. Girardi understood that it was his obligation to not only do something about the situation, but to do all he could in that situation. He didn’t know who the person was—or what they looked like, or what they believed in, or who they voted for—whose life he was about to risk his own to help save. All he knew was that a member of his human family was in trouble and that he was the one who could help save that person.

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For the record, the woman was not a baseball fan, and she did not even know who Joe Girardi was. It didn’t matter. All she knew was that he was there to save her life. The rest was irrelevant.