Joe Torre: never the obvious choice

By Shawn Krest

The Yankees have hired twelve different men as manager during the time George Steinbrenner has owned the club. If the tabloid reports out of the Bronx are any indication, the team may be looking for unlucky number thirteen soon.

Eleven of the twelve seem to make sense. They are men hand-picked by the Boss, with one eye on the New York newspaper headlines. There are five former Yankee players, two Hall of Famers, and one manager with a World Series ring on the list. There are men that were hired to kick tail in the clubhouse—leading in Steinbrenner’s image. Dallas Green, Lou Piniella, and Billy Martin, repeatedly come to mind. Five of the twelve were hired with no previous major league managerial experience—rookies easily bullied by the Boss. Of the seven that had managed in the big leagues before taking the Yankee job, six had winning records.

Then there is the twelfth. One name stands out, the Judas on the list of Steinbrenner disciples. He wasn’t brought in to please the Boss. When he was hired, he had managed almost 1,900 games in the major leagues, over 1,000 more than any other Steinbrenner hire. He joined the Yankees with a career managerial record that was 109 games below .500, the worst on the list by thirty percentage points.

He wasn’t brought in to please the fans. He wasn’t a name from the glorious Yankee past. He didn’t sport Yankee World Championship rings like Martin, Dent, Piniella and Berra before him. Not only was he a National League player and manager but he was recycled from the crosstown rival Mets.

He wasn’t brought in to please the media, and he didn’t. The headlines trumpeting his hire were all critical. One read, "Clueless Joe."

One other reason that current Yankee manager Joe Torre stands out from the list of Steinbrenner managers: he’ s been by far the most successful while in pinstripes. In his sixth year at the helm, he’ s won four world titles—double the total won by the other eleven. He’ s been to the World Series and lost, matching the total of his eleven predecessors. In his worst season, he finished second in the division and made the playoffs, matching the Yankees’ best finish in the previous 15 years.

Joe Torre’s previous managerial experience meant that he’d developed his own way of running a team, and it wasn’t Steinbrenner’s way. It didn’t involve throwing bases into centerfield or fighting reporters in the clubhouse or his own players in the dugout. Instead, Torre’s style is to serve as the calm at the center of the media storm that always surrounds baseball’s most famous team. It is to sit stone-faced in the dugout even when things are bleak on the field. His style is to remain loyal to his players, even if it makes him look bad in the headlines.

"You tend not to give away a whole lot," Torre says of his managerial style. "You learn as you go along. It’s a little different here than it was in the National League. There’s a lot more chess game and matchups going on there because you’ve got the pitcher hitting. But you get a feel for what the other managers are doing. Usually, with a lot of the other managers, they’re never really that consistent (in their strategy). And you shouldn’t be. You don’t want to be too predictable."

He catches himself and quickly adds. "Other than with your players. That’s the only time you really want to be consistent is with your own players."

The Yankees job wasn’t the first time that Torre has been an unexpected choice for manager. His first managerial job came with the Mets in the middle of the1977 season. Prior to that hiring, he’d been a backup first baseman for the team, meaning he’d be managing players that had been his teammates a few days ago. It would be like the Yankees announcing that their new skipper is Enrique Wilson or Todd Zeile.

"I got to the ballpark late that day, because it was that particular day that I was named manager," recalls Torre. "I had to get my lineup in. I remember that. I don’t think I hit the ground for about three days. You go from being a backup player to the manager of a team; there’s a lot more work to do. It was exciting. As a backup player you don’t feel too much use to your ballclub, and then all of a sudden you’re back in the basement playing baseball strategy games like you used to play as a kid. You have control over things."

He didn’t meet with immediate success. The Mets finished last in the division for the first three seasons of Torre’s tenure. "I know winning is first and foremost in everybody’s mind," says Torre. "But when you have a young team—it didn’t start out that way but eventually it became a young team—you take a lot of pride in the development of young players. And you have a lot to do with that. You’re there for that."

Many of the youngsters that Torre helped to develop on those terrible Mets teams became the backbone of the 1986 World Champions, five years after Torre left for Atlanta. Mookie Wilson, Wally Backman and Hubie Brooks came up under Torre. So did Jeff Reardon, who became one of the game’s best closers, Mike Scott, who became a Cy Young candidate with Houston, and Jesse Orosco, who’s still pitching in the big leagues.

Whether it’s with the last-place Mets or the first-place Yankees, Torre’s focus is on his players. The Yankees can only hope to be as lucky when it’s time to add a thirteenth name to the list.

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