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
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.
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.
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 thought today was very significant for him. This the most pressure you could be asked to pitch under when everybody expects you to win, you get one run and pitch up to those standards.
I think we have to change. We have to improve our bullpen somewhat and find someone to play center field.
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.
I think there's going to be a lot of people interested. Even going back to Houston, going back in May, I don't think is going to be any big deal for him. It'll probably benefit him, the fact that he won't have to pitch the whole time.
I said that I have no problem, ... I know him. He's a good guy. Obviously, he's very good at what he does.
I said I thought the umpire was quick on the trigger but I thought you snapped. I also told him I certainly don't want to take that emotion from him. I don't want him out there worried about what he's going to say or do. Hopefully, I'll get to him before it happens again. I never want to take his passion away from him because I think he needs it to pitch.
I saw a draft of this year's schedule halfway through last year, and you had to see this series right away. The schedule might have been preliminary. But I knew this series wasn't.
Opening day is very special. We've waited a long time for this. I left for spring training about two months ago.