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'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.
I didn't want guarantees, ... I just wanted to clear the air on everything that was part of my unhappiness, anger, frustration - I guess you can put all of those things under one heading. We talked about how we're going to go on from here.
One thing I'll say here. I'm not going to waste my time talking about negative things. We won a ballgame 9-8. I'm not here to start beating on people, especially the people that, if we expect to win, are going to get us there.
When you start talking about right-handed hitters for the Yankees who hit 40 home runs, there are only two of them. That's hard to believe, and the other guy is named DiMaggio. You know he's special.
How come certain guys come to New York and have trouble handling this, that and the other thing? Well, these guys came with no expectations, let's admit it. There wasn't anybody holding their breath to see what they were going to do and they had a chance, I think, to pitch as opposed to try and talk about it.
I talked to him this morning. Just after they stretched, I just went over and he was fine.
I talked to him again today, and he's on board with that. This time of year, you like to go with as much experience as possible.
You know we're capable. It's always talking about the thumpers and all of the big things we can do.
I can't talk about something I don't know anything about. We feel we really don't want to comment on these things.
I'm very comfortable working with Brian and I certainly hope that they find a way to get it done.
In games that Alex does not contribute with his bat, he's helped us win ballgames, so I think that should be part of the equation. I think it's a part David doesn't have.
(In) Game 6, the way he came into Yankee Stadium and pretty much dominated us - that's a memory that will be hard to lose. That had to be one of the most pressure outings you'll ever see in that situation.