Torre Gone

So Joe Torre isn't coming back. While many people saw this coming, I doubt they saw how it would come - with Torre turning down a performance-based contract. Quite honestly, I don't blame him. Given how he spoke when it became public that Steinbrenner didn't think he'd bring him back if the Yanks won the ALDS, it was pretty clear how hurt he was by that whole mess.

Even with a lifelong hatred of Yankees (the consolation when I was being raised on Indians baseball in the 80s was that, even though the Indians sucked, so did the Yankees, so it was alright), I could never quite even build up anger towards Torre. He was always a class act, and he always dealt with Steinbrenner's clownery far more gracefully than any human being should be expected to deal (I also love the rumor, probably true, that Steinbrenner was resentful of the fame Torre got, feeling the Boss deserved at least some of Torre's attention).

Several of my friends and I have been dying for him to get fired the past several seasons, but not out of any ill will towards Torre - quite the opposite. We were (and some still are) very strongly of the opinion that, in many ways, Torre's presence helped the Yankees win more games than maybe they should have. I have no problem in saying that he probably got the Yankees farther than they belonged a lot of the times in the last several years, given that they weren't so much a team as a bunch of guys on a team. Torre was getting heat when they started poorly this year, and although it killed me to see them come back from .500 at the All-Star break, a not-insignificant part of that probably rests on Torre's coaching. He certainly wasn't the greatest manager ever, and some of his mistakes were very poor decisions indeed, but given the player-situations he has had to deal with the past few years (Steinbrenner's collection of 1st basemen/DHs that overloaded both positions, the relatively vacant bullpen), I'm not even sure all of his mistakes were his fault. In other words, I'm not sure he inordinately made more mistakes than most other managers, and I suspect he made fewer than a lot of managers, past and present.

It will be interesting to see how things go next year, whoever is in the seat. Regardless of who does (or doesn't) come back next year in terms of players, I suspect the Yankees may drop some (and I really really dream they will drop some) - I think Torre's presence is really going to be missed now that he's finally gone. Time will tell, certainly, but this will be.....interesting....