Joe Torre may have been the man to reject the deal, but the Steinbrenner's may as well have forced the "no" out of his mouth. Torre didn't want to leave this team, but had to in order to preserve his class and dignity. Many fans are beside themselves at the fact that anyone could turn down five million dollars for nothing, but I understand exactly where Torre is coming from.
Torre refused to take the 1 year, incentive laden, 5 million dollar contract to manage the team (with a team option for a second year). Torre's current contract his him getting paid 7.5 million per year. Why the cut in salary? It's a mystery to most; the man has led his team to the playoffs 12 years in a row. It's not Torre's fault the Yankees lost to the Indians; Chien-Mien Wang took care of that almost entirely by himself (and the bugs didn't help). He's either good enough to manage this team, or he's not. Don't needlessly penalize him and make the team leader look silly in front of all of New York.
Yankee fans wanted Torre out, and now they have their wish. But regardless of their feelings about Torre, who is going to step in and do a better job? Don Mattingly, with his one year of bench coaching experience, is certainly no sure thing. Yankee fans seem to feel confident about him because he played great defense a long time ago. Joe Girardi is another popular name, because of his success with the Marlins. However, the reasons for the 2006 Marlins success can be attributed to the surprising contributions of Hanley Ramierez, Dan Uggla, and Anibal Sanchez.
Torre picked the perfect opportunity to say no; he now looks like a hero compared to the bumbling jackassery of the Steinbrenner sons. I hope Torre finds another winner to manage, he certainly deserves that chance. If not, I hope he enjoys his days drinking Bigelow Green Tea and chuckling as the Yankee organization looks worse and worse.
2 comments:
Just when I thought it might be safe to follow Yogi back into the Yankee fold, having left all those many years ago when the Dark Lord came, I can see that the Force is not yet right in Yankeeland. And so I continue to stand aside and wait for the tide to turn. In the meantime, I've got the Mets. . . . but that's another story.
Personally, I think that Steinbrenner purposely created the new contract assuming that it was a deal that Torre would not accept. He probably knew that Torre would take it as an insult, and that he wouldn't accept it. Hence, Streinbrenner would look like less of an ass because he could say "Well, I gave him an option.." But anyone with half a brain can figure out who the real jackass is in this situation. Especially since, even if Torre had taken the deal, Steinbrenner would've only been using him for the year to get his free agent players to stay.
As for your comment about Yankee fans wanting Torre out, I disagree. I know many many Yankee fans who are very disappointed with the fact that Torre is gone. My grandmother, who has been a Yankee fan since the year of the flood, has sworn that she will no longer watch Yankee games now that Torre was dissed and dismissed. The Yankees are going to lose a lot of fans AND a lot of players because of this.
However, I do agree with you that Torre shouldn't have been penalized for his teams' failure. He has always done all he could, just like his players have always said, and this whole situation has just been ridiculous.
Well, RIP Torre Era, and now all we have left is to wait and see whether this was a good decision for Steinbrenner to have made.
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