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
If we can just keep our minds on the game we're playing, ... that's the most important thing for us to do now, and hopefully we can continue to do that.
We're hoping he's healthy. That's No.1, first and foremost. All the reports that we've had is that he's been on a regular routine throwing ? not throwing off the mound, but everything seems to be good. He's a big horse for us. When he was a free agent last year he was at the top of my list. We were fortunate enough to be able to sign him. He just never was right. Mel can tell you, from spring training on he just didn't feel right. It was just something that nagged him all year. Finally we shut him down. Hopefully that stuff is behind him.
I have to find out how he came out of this. It's good that he's doing all of his conditioning. Hopefully it's a thing of the past.
I don't really know the nature of it. The fact that he hit, that's a good sign for us. Hopefully it's just something that's connected with Spring Training.
Hopefully it's true. He tries to never have a negative thought. But last year, I even admitted, I was surprised to see the power numbers come back the way they did that quickly.
The final week. We're not really looking to the weekend. We're looking at every single game. We can't rely on anybody else to do what we need to do. We need to win all the games, as Boston does, and a week from today when the smoke clears, hopefully we're standing tall.
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.