Joe Torre
Joe Torre
Joseph Paul "Joe" Torreis an American professional baseball executive, serving in the capacity of Major League Baseball'schief baseball officer since 2011. A former player, manager and television color commentator, Torre ranks fifth all-time in MLB history with 2,326 wins as a manager. With 2,342 hits during his playing career, Torre is the only major leaguer to achieve both 2,000 hits and 2,000 wins as a manager. From 1996 to 2007, he was the manager of the New York Yankees, whom...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAthlete
Date of Birth18 July 1940
CountryUnited States of America
You can feel the bubbles going before you get there but it's always satisfying for me. You still get the attention of the players. To me, that's the best part of what I do, dealing with these players.
He has gradually relaxed and he doesn't look before he steps now. Whatever needs to have the attention paid to, he's right there.
I don't know if it's nonchalance as maybe not paying attention as much as he should.
Years ago, you never concerned yourself with pitch counts. Now, with statistics telling you that between this number and that number bad things happen to this particular pitcher, you have to pay attention to it. The bullpen has become a huge part of what happens now.
If a club is winning, you never pay attention to a guy who's 0-for-10. If a club is losing, all of a sudden you'll find that he's the main reason why you're losing, which is absurd for me.
We just want to get home, ... Not many guys have had their families with them the entire time and we want to get back.
When a guy like that goes out there you feel you have the edge.
We had them on the ropes early and couldn't put them away. That's our fault.
We certainly need him in the lineup, whichever way he's better for us. Whichever way is easier for him, that's the way we'll have to go.
I've talked to him all year about thinking small, and big things will happen. When you're fighting for a pennant, everybody here will remember that at-bat (on Saturday) rather than a two-run home run when you're up by six runs. I don't think he would have done that last year because he would have been trying to do something bigger.
I've talked to Bernie and I think he's comfortable with it. Emotionally, he is fine with it. It is just that the last day of July was the day it had to be done. It was in his contract.
It was uncomfortable sitting in on that press conference. It must have been 10 times more uncomfortable for him. With that all behind him, I think he's going to enjoy spring training.
It was all about getting to it more so than anything else. ... You'd like to be able to tighten up defense everywhere, but you can only do so much.
Things like that happen. That's why baseball is so unpredictable. You don't play it by the clock. You can't freeze the ball. You have to get every single out, and every single one of those outs, especially the last five or six, are very tough to get.