BY Bill Madden and Teri Thompson
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS
Dallas Green has seen just about everything in his 51 years in Major League Baseball, but when his wife hung up the telephone Saturday in their Caribbean winter home and walked into the room where Green was watching television, the former Yankee and Met manager knew something horrific had happened. His wife was in shock - and in tears.
"They shot our beautiful Christina," Syliva Green told her husband.
Nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, Green's granddaughter, was killed in the horrific shooting spree at a routine voter meet-and-greet at a Tucson, Ariz., Safeway supermarket Saturday that left six dead and severely wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Green, one of baseball's most venerable figures, and his wife were en route to Tucson Sunday to be with their son John, Christina's father, and his family, leaving their Providenciales Isle home near the Bahamas with a stopover in Miami, where Green told the Daily News that he doesn't believe he will ever recover from the death of his granddaughter.
"I've had a lot of tough things happen to me in my life but this is one I'm never going to get over," Green told The News. "We're all hurting pretty bad. My son is devastated."
Support for the Green family began to pour in Sunday from all corners of baseball. John Green is the East Coast supervisor of amateur scouts for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ned Colletti, the Dodgers' general manager who was hired by Dallas Green as the PR director for the Chicago Cubs when Green was the team's general manager from 1982-1987, told The News that Christina's death "is a death in the family."
"I talked to John last night," said Colletti. "There was nothing you could say. It's a horrible tragedy."
Dodgers owner Frank McCourt pledged the team's support to the family. "We lost a member of the Dodgers family today," McCourt said. "The entire Dodgers organization is mourning the death of John's daughter Christina, and will do everything we can to support John, his wife Roxana and their son, Dallas, in the aftermath of this senseless tragedy."
In Philadelphia, where Green managed the Phillies to their first world championship in 1980 and is now an adviser to GM Ruben Amaro Jr., shock and sadness were the prevailing emotions.
"I have a terribly heavy heart," said Amaro, who learned of the news from Astros general manager Ed Wade, who had heard the girl might be Green's granddaughter and called Green, who confirmed the devastating news.
"I can't believe our princess is gone," Green told Amaro.
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel described an "empty feeling. I have two grandsons and I know what they mean to me. I remember Dallas telling me how smart she was. He said she gave him a warm feeling when she was around."
In a statement, Phillies president David Montgomery said, "The Phillies organization expressed our heartfelt condolences to Dallas and Sylvia and the entire Green family on the senseless, tragic loss of Christina's life. She was a talented young girl with a bright promising future. Her untimely death weighs heavily on our hearts. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the families affected by Sunday's horrific shooting."
Green managed both New York teams - the Yankees for most of the 1989 season and the Mets from 1993-1996. Mets CEO Jeff Wilpon expressed his sadness, saying, "Our thoughts and condolences go out to Dallas, his wife Sylvia, the entire Green family and everyone impacted by this tragedy."
Wilpon told The News that "just speaking as a parent, it is unimaginable what Dallas must be feeling."
Christina Taylor Green was born on Sept. 11, 2001, and had been included in "Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9-11," a book by Pennsylvanian Christine Pisana Naman that spotlighted one child from each state. The photo of the little girl was accompanied by a quote. "I hope you see rainbows," it read.
"She came in on a tragedy and she left on a tragedy," John Green said in a television interview.
"Pray for John and our family," said his father.
source:nydailynews.com/With Andy Martino and John Harper
