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
At some point soon, I'll sit down with Bernie and we'll go over everything. I have a great relationship with him, and always have. I've probably talked to him more than any other player here in my tenure. If the first game of the season were today, I'd say he'd be the starting DH. But I also want to give him a lot of time in the corners (left and right field), with the emphasis more on him playing right than left, spelling Sheffield.
I think he's chomping at the bit at this point to do more than we're letting him do.
You stop managing at that point in time,
It gets to the point where they just stopped thinking, went out there and reacted. It was sort of a playful determination that they had out there.
He was really good. I think he's champing at the bit at this point in time.
If you're a successful team you don't let things that are going on away from the field affect you. You do what you have to do, when you have to do it. At this point in the season, we're going start to start.
Instead of questioning the period, they're going to question the player for the whole time, and I don't think that's fair. Because he was a heck of a player as a skinny kid. He hit a lot of home runs against me. I would walk him intentionally even then, so that kind of respect was earned at that point in time.
All of the reports point to the fact that he's fine, and he's been throwing. Hopefully, it stays that way.
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.