Joe Torre made the New York Yankees relevant again

Joe Torre managed the New York Yankees from 1996-2007. He helped turn the franchise from inconsistency in the 1980s to the early 1990s toward complete dominance from the late 1990s into the mid-2000s. Photo by Al Bello/Allsport.

Written by Jack Butler jbutle58@lakers.mercyhurst.edu

CLEVELAND, Ohio – When the principal owner and managing partner of the New York Yankees George Steinbrenner hired Joe Torre on Thursday, November 2, 1995, many people were skeptical over the decision, especially sportswriter Mike Lupica. Just two days before Torre became the 31st skipper in Yankees’ history, [1] Lupica wrote: “Below Average Joe” for the New York Daily News which explained that giving Joe a managing job is a bad idea. Specifically, the eventual baseball novelist wrote this:

Only now Steinbrenner is supposed to be overheated at the prospect of having Joe Torre replace [Buck] Showalter, and even Steinbrenner’s most shameless flacks will have difficulty selling Torre as some kind of blockbuster championship hire. If Torre is the end of the star search, it will mean the search involved one phone call. [2]

A couple of paragraphs later, Lupica wrote, “Joe Torre is a sweetheart of a guy, but there is about the same demand for his services as a manager as there was for Darryl Strawberry’s as a ballplayer.” [3] Looking back twenty-four and a half years later, this is a “freezing cold take” as Torre proved the article wrong by winning four World Series in his first five seasons skippering Steinbrenner’s Yankees. But before we explore Torre turning the Yankees back into a baseball powerhouse, we’ll look at his brilliant 18-year career in the major leagues.

Torre began his professional career with the Milwaukee Braves, now Atlanta Braves since 1966, at nineteen-years-old. He only appeared in two games in 1960 with Milwaukee after being a September call-up, but the following year got more playing time because another player sustained an injury, and Torre took full advantage of the opportunity. The Society for American Baseball Research thoroughly explains this in Joe Torre’s biography by specifically stating that when Torre was summoned to his Louisville manager’s office on May 19, 1961, Braves’ catcher Del Crandall injured his throwing arm and Joe was supposed to join Milwaukee on the road in Cincinnati. [4] From that point on Joe never played an inning again in the minor leagues.

In his rookie season, Torre had 113 hits, hit 10 homers, drove in 42 runs, and batted at a .270 clip. These numbers led him to be the runner-up for the NL Rookie of the Year in 1961. Unfortunately, Torre played just 80 games in 1962 but the following season made his first NL All-Star team when he added 34 more base knocks from 1960, launched 14 dingers, and platted 71 runs while having a .293 batting average. But his career catapulted with the Braves between 1964 to 1968 where he averaged 153 hits, 21 doubles, 23 homers, 83 RBI, and batted .297 in each season during that time frame. [5] With his great success in the mid-1960s, he was named to four more NL All-Star teams and awarded a lone Rawlings Gold Glove at catcher in ’65.

Torre continued to get better with age as he enjoyed his most productive campaigns from 1969 to 1971 when he played for the St. Louis Cardinals. During those three years, he batted at an astonishing .326 clip while he averaged 202 hits, 30 doubles, 21 homers and 113 RBI each season which was highlighted by winning the 1971 NL MVP Award. Even though Torre’s numbers started to decline when he reached his mid-thirties, he remained a disciplined hitter until his final year when he player-managed the New York Mets in 1977.

After playing with the Milwaukee and then Atlanta Braves from 1960-1968, Joe Torre was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals where he enjoyed the peak of his career between 1969-1971 which culminated with winning the NL MVP in 1971. Photo by Louis Requena / Major League Baseball.

Torre ended up having the second most hits out of all 1961 MLB rookie players with 2,345 of them which is only behind the legendary Boston Red Sox left fielder Carl Yastrzemski who had 3,419 hits. [6] With Torre’s career over he remained in the game as a manager with New York (NL) from 1977 until 1981, the Braves between 1982 to 1984 and the Cardinals from 1990 till 1995. His 894-1003 managerial record and .471 winning percentage were not good by any means, [7] but Steinbrenner took a chance on the baseball lifer, and boy did it pay off.

At fifty-five-years-old, Joe Torre replaced Buck Showalter as the manager for an extremely young and talented New York Yankees ballclub, the most successful franchise in the majors. However, there was one thing missing which is on the tip of my tongue. Oh, I know…a World Series Commissioner’s Trophy or four of them. In 1996 Torre’s Yankees went 92 and 72 with the help of veterans Jimmy Key, John Wetteland, Wade Boggs, Cecil Fielder, and Darryl Strawberry and up and coming stars Andy Pettitte, Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, and Mariano Rivera reached the World Series. In the Bronx Bombers’ first Fall Classic since 1981, they were facing the historic Atlanta Braves pitching trio in Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz who just won the Series the year before. It took Joe Torre 4,272 games as player and manager until his first Series game – the longest anyone has taken to reach the World Series.

Torre and the Yankees were blanked horribly in the first two games by Smoltz and Maddux’s dominant pitching, but Torre was returning to his town for games three to five. Torre exclaimed, “‘But then (after Game Two, win or lose) we’re going to Atlanta. Atlanta’s my town. We’ll take three games there and win it back here on Sunday.’” [8] Despite having to rally back down 6-0 in game four to win 8-6 in ten innings, Torre’s dream of winning a World Series came true on Saturday, October 26, 1996, with a 3-2 win over Maddux and the Braves. Joe Torre reflects about winning the Series in Chasing the Dream by stating:

It had taken getting traded twice and fired three times. Both my parents had died years before they could have seen me celebrate the victory. And in the end, it had taken the most emotional twelve months of my life: the birth of my daughter Amanda Rae; the shocking death of my brother Rocco; and a life-saving transplant for (brother) Frank on the eve of the clinching game of the World Series. I never expected that chasing the dream would bring me to so many magical moments, or that that the road to get there would be so long and so painful. [9]

After finally winning a World Series, Torre experienced something he never could do as a player, witness the celebration following the last out. In the 1996 Fall Classic, the final out was made by third baseman Charlie Hayes in foul territory (click this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BriIpt5WTA to listen to John Sterling and Michael Kay call the 27th out). [10]

Principal owner George Steinbrenner and manager Joe Torre celebrate the New York Yankees clinching the 1996 World Series inside the Yankee Stadium clubhouse after a 3-2 win over the Atlanta Braves in game six. Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images.

Even though the Yankees were the AL Wild Card the next year, they were upset by the mighty Cleveland Indians in five games in the ALDS. New York came back anticipating getting to another Fall Classic, which they did by winning a then 114 regular-season games (Seattle Mariners won 116 in 2001) and steamrolled to a second title in three years with an 11-2 postseason record. With all the success and accolades earned by Torre in a short 36 months, perseverance came into his life when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer during Spring Training. [11] For Torre, the cancer was discovered in time and he made a full recovery to manage the remaining 126 regular-season games. Through persevering, he and the Yankees’ won its second consecutive World Championship over the Braves.

New York Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner comforts manager Joe Torre after completing the four game sweep of the San Diego Padres at Qualcomm Stadium. Photo by Pat Sullivan / AP .

New York started the new millennium right where they left off by winning their division for the fourth time in five seasons and it ended in besting Bobby Valentine and the New York Mets in five games. Torre’s Yankees’ won four titles in five years which is a feat that will not be achieved any time soon. The reason is the difference between large and small market payrolls are huge which means teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and the Kansas City Royals can’t always compete while players also have more freedom in free agency than ever before.

By being a Cleveland Indians fan, you hate ( I mean greatly dislike) the New York Yankees, however, I appreciate and respect greatness whenever I see it. Joe Torre resembled that from 1996-2007 by going 1,173 and 767, winning ten AL East Division Championships, six AL Pennants and four World Series Championships but more importantly he changed the fate of the irrelevant Yankees into one of the greatest dynasties in baseball history. Without George Steinbrenner’s decision to hire Torre, none of this would have ever happened and possibly Torre does not find himself with a plaque in Cooperstown 18 years later.

Endnotes

[1] Baseball Reference. (2020). New York Yankees Managers [Data file]. Retrieved May 3, 2020, from https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/managers.shtml [2] Lupica, Mike. (1995, October 31). Below Average Joe. New York Daily News. Retrieved May 3, 2020, https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/lupica-yankees-new-manager-average-joe-article-1.2140141 [3] Id [4] Cohen, Alan. (2020). Joe Torre Player Biography [Data file]. Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved May 6, 2020, from https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/09351408 [5] Baseball Reference. (2020). Joe Torre Statistics [Data file]. Retrieved May 6, 2020, from https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/torrejo01.shtml [6] Baseball Reference. (2020). 1961 MLB Rookie Players [Data file]. Retrieved May 7, 2020, from https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1961-rookies.shtml [7] Baseball Reference (2020). Joe Torre Managerial Statistics [Data file]. Retrieved May 7, 2020, from https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/torrejo01.shtml [8] Golenbock, Peter. George: The Poor Little Rich Boy who Built the Yankee Empire, 295. Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Retrieved May 7, 2020 from, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/c43ad285 [8] Torre, Joe (with Tom Verducci). Chasing the Dream: My Lifelong Journey to the World Series, 11. New York, Bantam Books, 1997. Retrieved May 7, 2020 from, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/c43ad285 [10] [MLB]. (2017, February 7). 1996WS Gm6: Sterling, Kay call Yanks’ World Series win [Video file]. Retrieved May 7, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BriIpt5WTA [11] Id