Good move, Joe

Just last night I was reading about the Yankees’ executives meetings in Tampa. It all seemed so odd – the execs were holed up in one of the Steinbrenner family compounds, only surfacing to tip the Domino’s man (I figure the Yankees would eat Domino’s… that just seems to fit) and perhaps even to breathe unrecycled air before diving back underground. Meanwhile, outside the self-important NYC media gathered to delve so deeply into the most important story involving The Empire, watching from just off the Steinbrenner property line as if they were witnessing the election of a pope.

If the White House press corps worked half as hard as the Yankees beat writers, who knows how the world situation might be right now. But I know one thing for certain – President Gore would have his hands for with those Yankees scribes, that’s for sure.

But in going through the frantic and breathless dispatches from Tampa as if it were Ed Murrow describing the “orchestrated hell” of the English Lancasters’ raid on Berlin in December of 1943, I thought to myself, “Geez, what an awful thing to do to yourself.”

And I wasn’t just thinking about the NYC media staked out in Tampa. Nope, those jackals can take care of themselves. Instead, I was thinking about Joe Torre.

What did Joe Torre do to be treated this way? Was winning all of those baseball games and going to the playoffs all of those years really so bad?

Answer: Yes.

After 12 seasons with the Yankees in which every single one of them ended in the playoffs, including four World Series victories and six American League pennants, Torre was being dangled for the sharks by the team’s brass as if he were chum at the bottom of a metal bucket. Apparently that’s what 12 straight playoff appearances and a 1,173-767 regular-season record gets a guy like Torre.

Guys with half the accomplishments but 10 times the ego get to strut around like models on the runway. Only instead of thin and stylish women, we get to watch tired, frumpy and pasty middle-aged white guys bluster on using words like “tradition” and “history.”

What, they just can’t say, “Thank you… ” and leave Torre the hell alone?

Obviously not. Instead, Steinbrenner and his minions held meetings about having meetings that were followed up with the meetings in Tampa. All the while Torre was left to twist in the wind.

That is until today. Finally, Torre did the admirable thing and told the Yanks to take their managerial job and the 12 consecutive playoff appearances – a run that neither Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy nor Casey Stengel could touch – and stick it.

Oh, the Yankees wanted Torre back for 2008. At least that’s what they will say of the one-year, $5 million deal Torre was offered. To “motivate” Torre, team president Randy Levine explained that the one-year deal was loaded with incentives contingent upon a World Series appearance.

“We thought that we need to go to a performance-based model, having nothing to do with Joe Torre's character, integrity or ability,” Levine. “We just think it's important to motivate people.”

Yes, because a grown man who was paid $2.5 million more than the offer in 2007 who has been in the Major Leagues since turning 19 in 1960 needs motivation. Yes, thank Randy Levine for being the one to make that slacker Joe Torre to see things the proper way. Heck, if Torre would have done things Levine’s way they would have won the World Series twice in 1998.

Geez…

Obviously, the Yankees made Torre and offer he had to refuse. Clearly they want to go in another direction, which is the team’s prerogative. After all, Don Mattingly, Joe Girardi, Tony La Russa and Bobby Valentine are circling like buzzards to pick at Torre’s carcass. But Torre’s departure likely means the official end of the Yankees’ more –than-a-decade long run at the top of baseball. Alex Rodriguez, the likely MVP of the American League, will probably opt out of his contract with Torre gone. It’s also likely that others will follow A-Rod out the door, like top closer Mariano Rivera, catcher Jorge Posada and lefty starting pitcher Andy Pettitte.

But Scott Boras, the agent for Rodriguez says Torre had to turn down the deal lest the remaining players think of him as “weak.”

“It is difficult, near impossible, to accept a salary cut,” Boras told the Associated Press. “Successful people can afford their principles. They understand if they accept the position, there is a great risk the message to all under him is dissatisfaction.”

Then there is that whole fired-for-winning chestnut. It’s doubtful that DreamWorks Studios could have conjured up the special affects to make Torre’s situation even halfway believable. Better yet, maybe Spielberg and the gang can figure out a scenario in which Larry Bowa takes over as manager of the Yankees.

Please, please, please, please, please...

It's go time!

When the Yankees’ Philip Hughes came out Tuesday night’s game in the seventh inning despite working on a no-hitter, it didn’t really seem like that big of a deal. After all, it was just Hughes’ second start as a big leaguer and it’s much better to be safe than sorry with the franchise’s top prospect.

But upon hearing it was a hamstring injury, I thought something was amiss. With Hughes out with a hamstring injury, he joins teammates Hideki Matsui, Mike Mussina and Chien-Ming Wang on the sidelines with hammy injuries. Mix that with Andy Pettitte (sore back from lifting weights) and Johnny Damon and his calf injury (calves and hamstrings are related) and it’s easy to wonder what in the name of the assistant to the travelling secretary is going on in the South Bronx?

So it really didn’t come as much of a surprise when the Yankees announced that they had fired their strength coach on Wednesday. But when reading the story about the strength coach, 34-year old Marty Miller, it’s not surprising that he was a little unpopular with the players on the Yankees. Most baseball players, believe it or not, take fitness very, very seriously. Miller just didn’t seem to have the credentials to be in charge of keeping the Yankees loose and limber for a 162-game season.

Why not? Well, Miller had not worked in baseball for 10 years before general manager Brian Cashman hired him just before spring training. Prior to that, Miller’s previous job was director of fitness at the Ballen Isles Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

The Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.? What, the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association didn’t want the gig? Was Izzy Mandelbaum available?

Regardless, reports on the Internets indicate that Tim McCarver had the answer for all the hamstring trouble plaguing the Yankees and other clubs during last weekend’s telecast of the Yanks-Red Sox game… how about mandatory yoga? Yeah, that’s right, yoga.

Oh don’t laugh. Yoga is extremely popular with not just baseball players, but also many other top-level professional athletes. On the Phillies, Mike Lieberthal was a devotee for years, which influenced many other players on the team to take it up. Geoff Geary tells some entertaining stories about his Bikram Yoga sessions.

McCarver is definitely on to something, and maybe Miller (Marty, you’re doing a heckuva job… ) wasn’t quite hip to the trends of fitness, who knows. Either way, I will go out on a limb and say there is no better stretch than the downward facing dog, though my best pose is savasana.

***
Remember when Bobby Abreu played for the Phillies and fought the notion that he could be one of the best leadoff hitters in the game if he would just agree to moving up on the batting order? Remember all of that? Well, guess who has hit leadoff twice already this season?

You got it, Bobby Abreu.

For the record, Abreu hit leadoff for the Yankees for the first time since Larry Bowa bumped him up there for about 20 at-bats with the Phillies in 2003.

***
Someone told me that the NBA Playoffs were going on… really?

Riding the pines

Days have passed and the next series has already put a game in the books, and all of baseball is still talking about the New York Yankees. From the manager, to the owner, the GM and the team’s best player, there certainly is not a dearth of things to talk about with the always-soap operatic ball club in the South Bronx.

Listening to the consensus, it sounds as if most commentators, columnists, etc. believe it would be a bad move for George Steinbrenner to fire Joe Torre as the manager. After all, Torre’s record speaks for itself. Under Torre, the Yankees have gone to the playoffs in 11 straight seasons, which is unprecedented in the hallowed franchise’s history.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t cracks in the armor. After all, with the stars assembled on the current Yankee clubs, and the payroll that equals the GNP of a small country, simply getting to the playoffs doesn’t seem like a difficult task. The tough part, it seems, is getting those superstars to put the egos aside and come together to win.

Kind of how the Tigers did this season.

That seems to be where Torre has had some difficulty over the past few seasons. With Paul O’Neil and Tino Martinez during the beginning of the “dynasty,” Torre never had to worry about the so-called veteran leadership. His players were in charge and that was a good thing.

But, as some Yankees observers have opined, things have not been the same since those players moved on. Coincidentally, though, those departures coincide with Alex Rodriguez’s arrival in the Bronx.

Now whether or not Rodriguez is a divisive force on a team is tough to judge. Certainly, his statistics appear to be of the caliber that should help a team win games. How can they not be? But then again, there have been MVP and Cy Young Award winners on last-place teams. In that same vain, Rodriguez’s former teams always seem to improve after he leaves. That happened in Seattle and Texas.

Will it happen in New York?

General manager Brian Cashman says the Yankees aren’t going to trade Rodriguez. But maybe those words are just a smokescreen? Do they even really need A-Rod? Sure, he’s arguably one of the best players in the game, but when he’s hitting eighth in the lineup in an elimination game, isn’t that the same as saying, “Hey A-Rod, we really don’t want you to get too many at-bats today… ”

If he’s batting eighth, why not just put him on the bench?

Tough to shoulder
Speaking of sitting on the bench, Scott Rolen has deemed himself ready to play in Game 1 of the NLCS tonight after sitting out of the Cardinals’ clincher in Game 4 over the Padres last Sunday.

It appears as if Rolen withheld the severity of his aching shoulder that was surgically repaired last season. Conventional wisdom indicates that it should take at least a year following the surgery for Rolen to be at full strength, though that didn’t appear to be the case based on his 2006 statistics.

At least that didn’t seem to be the case based on Rolen’s season leading up to September. That where the long season took its toll on his injury and also where Rolen, apparently, hid the severity of its weakness from manager Tony La Russa. Rolen, it seemed, felt the Cardinals needed him too much during the stretch run even though the team has Scott Spiezio as a fully capable backup.

According to wire accounts, La Russa was a little peeved when Rolen finally let on how much he was hurt:

La Russa seemed perturbed before Game 4 of the division series that Rolen had not mentioned the shoulder problem until Sunday. At the same time, he said Rolen’s willingness to play hurt was admirable.

“That’s why he didn’t come out and say how sore he was, because you know he wants to play,” La Russa said. “Here’s a guy that’s not fighting for a job, he’s got security, and he just wants to be a part of it.

“I was never and am not now upset with Scott.”

If there is one thing we learned about Rolen when he was in Philadelphia it is that he the proverbial gamer. If it takes running through a brick wall in order to win a game, he'll do it. But we also learned that Rolen is also stubborn and sensitive and always trying to prove himself.

I guess that is what makes him a great athlete.

Either way, Rolen took a shot of cortisone to be ready for Game 1, which makes him the second former Phillie currently in the playoffs to take a shot within the past month (Placido Polanco, the man traded for Rolen in 2002, is the other).

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that since slugging the game-winning home run off Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the 2004 NLCS, Rolen is 1-for-26 with three strikeouts in his last two playoff series.

Not good enough?

New York sure is different than Philadelphia.

Yes, that really is an ambiguous statement, but when comparing the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies, grand, open-ended ambiguity is the safest bet.

For the Phillies, the “Golden Age” of the franchise started in the mid-1970s and lasted until the early 1980s. For about a decade, the Phillies were about as good as a team could be in the Major Leagues. They were so good, in fact, that in 1979 Danny Ozark was fired as the manager of the team because he didn’t win the World Series after winning 101 games in 1976 and 1977 and a 90-win NL East title in 1978.

It wasn’t enough to get it done.

In 1983, general manager Paul Owens bounced Pat Corrales from the managerial seat even though he had the Phillies in first place with 76 games remaining in the season. Owens came down from the front office and kept the Phillies right where Corrales left them before the collapse in the World Series against the Orioles.

Those were the days when it was either the World Series or failure for the Phillies, and it’s safe to say that a similar mentality never really occurred in the team’s 123-season history.

It would be interesting to see what fate would beset Charlie Manuel if he stumbled the way Ozark and the Phillies did in 1979. Or what would happen to Manuel if he were the skipper in 1983 when Corrales’ first-place Phillies were doing something wrong 86 games in to the season.

How can a team fire the manager when his team is in first place?

Make no mistake; there are a lot of people who don’t want Manuel to return to the bench for 2007 after two seasons in which he won more games than all but one manager in team history through this point in his tenure. With the Phillies, 173 victories in two seasons in which the team was eliminated from wild-card playoff contention at game Nos. 162 and 161 is borderline historic. Actually, it’s more than remarkable – it’s unprecedented.

This is a franchise, after all, where only two (two!) managers have taken the team to more than one postseason. It’s a franchise that has been to the playoffs just nine times in 123 seasons. For comparisons sake, look at the Atlanta Braves who… wait, nevermind. It just isn’t fair to compare the Phillies to any other franchise.

Anyway, one of those dynamic duo of managers was Ozark, who won the NL East three years in a row but was axed when he couldn’t do it for a fourth, and the other was Ozark’s replacement, Dallas Green, who delivered the franchise’s only title in 1980 only to lose to Montreal in the 1981 NLDS.

That loss was enough to send Green on his way to Chicago where he thought he could break the Cubs’ losing curse. But Green quickly learned that even he isn’t that good. Sure, historically things are really bad for the Phillies, but even they don’t compare to the futility of the Cubs.

Maybe Joe Torre is the manager the Cubs need to help them end 98 straight seasons without a World Series? After all, it appeared as if Torre was going to be out of a job after 11 seasons as the manager of the New York Yankees.

Torre apparently was headed for the same fate as Danny Ozark in 1979 before general manager Brian Cashman and the Yankees players interceded. But unlike Ozark, Torre didn’t miss the playoffs this year. Actually, Torre made it to the playoffs in every season he was the manager for the Yankees. He averaged close to 100 victories per season, won the World Series four times, including three years in a row, figured out how to charm the fickle New York media and even more erratic, owner George Steinbrenner.

There is no way to categorize Torre’s time with the Yankees as anything other than wildly successful. In fact, there are some of those fickle and hyperbolic New York-media types who have deemed Torre’s Yankees’ career as Hall-of-Fame worthy alongside the all-time greats like Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Miller Huggins. Add Torre to that tribunal and get 21 of the Yankees’ 26 World Series titles, and 30 American League pennants.

In other words, Joe Torre has done a lot better than Charlie Manuel, but only one of them was truly on the proverbial hot seat for returning to the same team in 2007.

One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. Obviously, making it through Game 161 with a fighting chance is not a good season in the South Bronx. Steinbrenner, unlike David Montgomery and the Phillies, does not celebrate moral victories or potential. Because of that, Torre and his failure to deliver a World Series title since 2000, ends the season as a “sad disappointment,” as his boss stated. Those 1,079 victories, not including the 75 more in the playoffs, ring a bit hollow.

Torre, it seems, built expectations so high that anything less than perfection was not good enough. Is it his fault that his hitters picked a really bad time to stop being the best offense in baseball, or that the pitching staff he was handed didn’t live up to its old press clipping s anymore?

Of course not. But Torre made the mistake of having high standards.

We don’t have that problem here.

Instead, Charlie Manuel’s run in Philadelphia is still littered with hope and promise. For the Phillies, 173 victories in two seasons is nothing to sneeze at.

Rotation for Yankees series set

Here it is:Monday, June 19 Randy Johnson (8-5, 5.32) vs. Brett Myers (4-3, 3.86)

Tuesday, June 20 Mike Mussina (8-3, 3.14) vs. Cory Lidle (4-6, 4.89)

Wednesday, June 21 Jaret Wright (3-4, 4.86) vs. Cole Hamels (1-2, 4.91)

After a day of on Thursday, the Phillies head to Boston for a weekend series where they will have to face Curt Schilling on either Friday night or Saturday afternoon.