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
To wind up in Cooperstown is surreal for me. To go into the Hall of Fame is one thing. When you think of all the other Yankees that are in here, it's pretty special. This is just a shrine. To visit it, much less be inducted, it's still sort of unbelievable to me.
We had to weigh all the information, ... but we decided the defensive part of it carries the most weight, so we were sort of leaning that way.
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 carried that with him the first half of the year. If for some reason his routine gets disrupted, (he's) sort of off-center. But he left spring with a good look in his eye.
I haven't taken his pulse lately; it barely moves. But he pitched well for us last year, and sometimes a little bit of a language barrier is an advantage. You're not having to answer a lot of questions and converse with a lot of people. It sort of insulates you. I have no doubt he'll be able to handle it.
The kid has been through a lot, but we were sort of up against it. He's certainly had a tough week.
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.