It looks like the Yankees and Joe Torre have finally buried the hatchet (via ):
Though the relationship between Torre and the Yankees seemed frosty at first, especially after Torre and co-author Tom Verducci collaborated on a book, “The Yankee Years,” the thawing process began last year when Torre attended the unveiling of Steinbrenner’s Monument Park tribute last year.
Torre also said that he has been invited to this year’s Old-Timer’s Day festivities at Yankee Stadium on June 26, an event he plans to attend.
“It means a lot,” Torre said. “Without this opportunity here, my whole professional career would have been different. This was the main part of my career — I know I played for a long time and had some memorable times, but the time in New York, I’ll never forget what it meant.”
Although it has been over 3 years since Torre left and his book was released, I know many Yankees fans who are not quite ready to welcome Torre back with open arms. When he returned for the unveiling of the Steinbrenner monument, our own Steve S. had the following to say:
I wasn’t at last night’s game, but if I was I would have sat on my hands when Torre waved to the crowd. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I was very unhappy with the way Joe chose to leave the Yanks. I think it’s inarguable that the Yanks made Torre, not the other way around…..Reading ‘The Yankee Years’ there were sections that were clearly designed to settle scores. He can call it “giving his side of the story” all he wants, but we got his side for 12 years from the local beat reporters and pundits. That book was the work of a bitter man who felt he deserved better…This is the key element of putting his acrimonious exit behind us for me. If the principals involved are no longer mad at him, it would be silly of me to still be upset on their behalf….Welcome back, Joe.
I think that gamut of emotions represents how I feel on the issue. I was quite displeased with how Torre exited New York, and felt that the book he wrote with Verducci greatly exacerbated what could have been a much smoother process. However, I am not one to hold grudges against a man who was a part of some very successful Yankees teams, and if the Steinbrenners and Brian Cashman are ready to move on, I am as well. Eventually, Joe will have his number retired by the Yankees, and I plan to cheer and celebrate the occasion when it comes.
But I suspect that there are a number of Yankees fans who are not thrilled with the news that Joe is being brought back into the Yankee family. The playoff failures of Joe’s last few seasons at the helm soured a sizable number of fans on him, and his painful exit served to cement those feelings and make them oddly personal. Fans went from disliking Torre as a manager to disliking him as a person, something that seemed inconceivable as late as 2005. For some of those fans, it may be too soon for him to return to a standing ovation on Old Timer’s Day.
Where do you stand on Torre’s return? Are you ready to welcome him back with open arms?
Photo courtesy of Sipkin/Daily News
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I’ll forgive him if they let A-Rod slap him in the face just once.
(Only half-kidding. But I think if he apologized, I’d feel a lot better about the whole situation.)
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oldpep Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
I agree with the first sentence. I think there are a few other guys (mostly set-up guys) who get to smack him as well, but the way he treated Alex was mean-spirited and (as always) self-serving.
How he still gets to take all of the credit for what Stick and Buck did boggles my mind.
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I for one think this is long over-due. I wasn’t displeased about his book and I think the criticisms were overblown. I also thought the way he was disrespected at the end of his tenure was disgraceful. That being said, I do think the time for him to go was probably over-due. It would have been so much simpler if the Yankees had told him privately that they would not be renewing his contract and given him a big farewell at the stadium. Things in live often get messy and this was just one of those circumstances. i’m glad the feud didn’t last as long as the one between Yogi and the Steinbrenners
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Not sure where I stand on Torre. I haven’t read his book, so that might change my opinion. I do greatly appreciate what he did in his years with the Yankees, however the organization put him a position to succeed. If he wasn’t happy with their last offer to him, he probably should have said “Thanks, but no thanks.” and left it there.
As I’m not in NY, I don’t have to worry too much about how I handle his return.
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I hate Torre and think he was vastly overrated. Once the competition finally caught up to the Yankees in the aughts (not to belittle the late 90s dynasty teams, but the playing field has leveled considerably since those heady days) he showed that he couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag. I for one wish he’d been axed after nearly singlehandedly losing the 2003 World Series by going to Weaver in Game 4.
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Steve S. Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
Hah! This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where The Boss goes over to Mr Costanza’s house in Queens to tell him his son is missing, and the minute he sees George he goes into this rant:
Mr C-”JAY BUHNER!?! YOU TRADED JAY BUHNER FOR FREAKING KEN PHELPS!?!”
GS-”But Mr Costanza, your son..”
Mr C-”JAY FREAKING BUHNER!?!”
Just replace “Jay Buhner” with “Jeff Weaver”.
BTW- I don’t disagree, its just funny the grudges we all keep. I’m still mad at Joe for a press conference in 2005.
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I really don’t care. He is dead to me…about as important as any player I never heard of. I just hope they don’t retire his number.
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I’m surprised with the level of saltiness towards Joe here.
Don’t get me wrong, I had started to get tired of his act around ’06, when it became clear that he really wasn’t a great Xs and Os manager as Larry pointed out. The team needed a change of pace and I was happy to see him leave for Girardi.
But at the same time, there’s no way that a man, any man, who was the manager of a Yankee dynasty at any point in the team’s history cannot be welcomed back with open arms by the fans. I’m glad to see things are starting to be patched up between Joe and the organization and I’m glad he’s going to be participating in Old Timer’s Day. If I were there I would be cheering for him.
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Brads Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
To me, it’s all about how he left. He thought he was bigger than the organization…and showed no class in being grateful for the organization probably putting him in the HOF.
I also always felt that without Zimmer, he was nothing special..
Finally, I felt he was a bit of a lying hypocrite the way he played favorites and still put on a face as the great buddy/uncle.
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T.O. Chris Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
I still can’t get over the one image I will always carry of Torre and that is him doing what looked like sleeping in the dugout during a Yankee game, maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t but sitting way in the back of the dugout, by yourself with your eyes closed isn’t the reaction I want out of my manager ever. I just never got over that.
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Larry Koestler Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Try as I might, I just can’t muster up an sympathy or nostalgia for Joe. Between the awful book, and the complete and utter lack of ability to actually manage, he’s probably the most overrated skipper in baseball history.
The only reason he was so beloved is because he was amazing at handling the media, and also happened to have the good fortune of fielding several Yankee teams that were leaps and bounds better than the competition.
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Brads Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
You said it better than I could…
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I think that it is safe to say that if Casey Stengel were the manager of the yankees in modern times, he would probably be just as criticized. Torre won 4 WS, all really before the Yankees became the big money spenders of the 00s. The 96 team were underdogs, the 98 could arguably be the best team of all time, and 00 wasnt a great team, but found a way to win in the playoffs. I personally think Torre had a lot to do with all of that. I will say that I thought it was the right time for him to leave when he did. However, I thought the way the Yankees treated him was horrible. To offer him a one year deal with playoff incentives, when a) he knows what needs to be done more than anyone b) the option only kicks in if they win the world series put more pressure on him then was really needed. He was right to walk away and be angry about that. I read the book, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t think it was as bad as people made it out to be. Most of the things he said wasn’t news to anyone who follows the yankees religiously and with the way the media was spinning the story after he left, I think it was his right to tell his side, even if it irked some yankees. The way his tenure played out (more success in the first half, less in the second) I think has more to do with how he is portrayed then anything else. Usually, the flaws become apparent early on and you suffer through them for a time and then the team has success and you quickly forget about it. But for torre, 4 WS titles in first 5 years makes fans think he can do no wrong and then 7 years w/o title, all his flaws are highlighted even more. He’s probably the third best manager in Yankees history and we should all be greatful for this time here.
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bexy Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
How’d they treat him horribly when they would’ve paid him the most of any manager? I find it hard to go “oh poor Joe” over that.
And it’s not even so much what he said in the book, it’s the fact that he wrote it at all. For a guy who prided himself on class and the sacred privacy of the locker room, it was just wrong, even if I agree that what he said was for the most part really obvious (and the other stuff involved Roger Clemens putting Icy Hot on his balls, which I never needed to know, ever).
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T.O. Chris Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Really at the end of the day the book is such a small part of it as you say Bexy, the biggest points of contention with Torre include the way he treated Alex, his lack of any kind of bullpen management know how, his lack of using any rookie and his complete lack of stealing or running bases… EVER!
Hell in that 2004 series with the Sox I don’t remember a single time the runners were put in motion, he wouldn’t take any risks he just waited around for a bomb and Mo like always.
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T.O. Chris Reply:
March 18th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
He completely stopped managing at a certain point and for all his NL manager in the AL bit he turned into nothing more than a warm body sitting around waiting for a big HR to bail him out.
In the playoffs against the Sox in 2004 he did one of the worst managing jobs I have ever seen, up 3-0 and you can’t pull out one game? You don’t attempt a single steal off of Wakefield and he never actually sent the runners in motion or attempted to make it tough on Jason Varitek behind the plate, he got completely reliant on a big bomb and Mo at the end of every game. We could also go on for days with his lack of trust of any young pitcher, not trusting the pen when not named Mariano Rivera and overworking Rivera and Gordon during the regular season in 2004 (or every year) his isolationism tactics in the clubhouse leading many to believe there were “Torre’s guys” and the rest of the locker room and his allowing Alex Rodriguez to be ostracized from the team and even contributing to it by allowing and thinking it was funny he was called “A-Fraud” instead of trying to help the situation and his ultimately dropping Alex to 7th in the order in the playoffs killing any confidence he had and embarrassing him to the point of worthlessness on the field.
What he allowed to happen with Alex is unforgivable, you can’t allow the best player on your team to feel like an outsider and do nothing about it, or worse yet contribute to it and then write a book about it exposing the world to just how bad it was. No wonder we were so awful so many time in the playoffs towards the end of his run, he only cared about 4-6 guys and everyone else could fend for themselves.
Torre deserves all the mud thrown his way and more, better managers would have walked out with more rings and at least one more WS appearance, don’t let tge nab get away with Murder because he saved a boy from drowning once.
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