With last night’s Game 4 ALDS defeat to Cleveland marking what could be the end of Yankee manager Joe Torre’s tenure in the Bronx (as well as that of The Third Baseman), WFAN’s Chris Russo tackled the most important subject of all this evening — how the reactions of Bombers fans might compare to those of his fellow San Francisco Gians acoloytes.
Russo : It was so calm, they were so reserved….
Francesca : They’re used to losing now. They’ve gotten used to it.
Russo : ‘Chris would you sign this?’ ‘Chris, sign my ball?’ It’s so civilized…Giants fans, they’d be throwing things.
Francesca : Yeah, they’ve had a lot of big playoff games lately at Pac Bell.
Russo : Everyone asking me for my autograph, like the loss was no big deal.
For Newsday’s Ken Davidoff — strangely unworried how such a disappointing result might play in the Bay Area, “the dismissal of Torre will be a sad move for many people in the Yankees organization and the fan base (although that fan support has dwindled). But it will be the right move.”
Torre’s $7 million salary has never seemed more outdated. Managers’ salaries have not increased in conjunction with those of the players, because most organizations feel that a manager simply isn’t important enough to earn that kind of money.
Managers are much more extensions of their front office, philosophically, than they once were. While Torre and Yankees general manager Brian Cashman have an excellent personal relationship – Cashman battled to save Torre’s job a year ago – Torre and Cashman aren’t entirely on the same page when it comes to player deployment.
Torre is the first person to say that, all things being equal, he prefers veteran players to youngsters. That’s not the way of the baseball world anymore. Cheap, durable, versatile youngsters rule the day, a trend that Cashman has endorsed wholeheartedly.
Torre has improved in this area; witness the development and importance of kids like Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera and Game 3 winner Phil Hughes. Nevertheless, if you followed this season closely enough, you saw that Torre let rookies like Shelley Duncan and Edwar Ramirez wither away from a lack of use, while going to relievers like Scott Proctor and Luis Vizcaino so often that he wore them down. With so many talented youngsters now in the Yankees’ farm system, you want to make sure you fully trust the person using them.
Torre belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame for what he did with the Yankees. He brought dignity to his office at every turn, whether he was winning, or battling prostate cancer, or bringing his Safe at Home Foundation around the tri-state area. On a personal level, it has been a pleasure covering him and dealing with him.
Yet no one’s job lasts forever, and no one job is intended for just one person. Torre deserves a lifetime standing ovation, but not lifetime tenure.
Sometime today Francesca (maybe with Russo chiming in) said Torre would probably go to the Dodgers, because a) he has a house in Hawaii he likes to visit and b) it’ll be easier to hang out with big stars, like Billy Crystal.
Better/worse was the Roberts/Beningo caller who, after the Thomas fiasco, posed the thought experiment of Roberts sexually harassing Beningo. They kind of muttered him off the phone, then decided that it would have to be Beningo harassing Roberts. But then they turned it around again. I turned off the radio in horror when Bingo said something like, “I won’t be turning my back on you.”