ONE OF BASEBALL'S FINEST

JOE TORRE

JOE TORRE

It’s funny how events come to pass. Growing up as a young baseball fan in Brooklyn, NY, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Joe Torre was a NY Yankee fan. His brother Frank played for the Milwaukee Braves for 5 years, and eventually, Joe got to the big leagues too. In 1960, while Frank was playing his last season for the Braves, Joe joined the team in September.

Joe’s career included playing first base, catcher and third base for the New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, and was named to the All-Star team 9 times. He also managed the Mets, Cards and Braves, and then from 1996, to 2007, managed the New York Yankees, before moving to the LA Dodgers.

MANAGER JOE

He was a decent power hitter with over 250 home runs, but he is most noted as a player for one thing and one thing only. While playing for the Mets, he hit into 3 double plays in one game!

As a manager his career record was 2,326–1,997, a .538 winning percentage as a manager, as Yankee manager won the World Series in 1996, 1998-99, and 2000. Most of his career victories were with the Yankees.

Then he went to Major League Baseball as an Executive Vice President, where he retired.

CASEY STENGEL

Today, he is part of a group looking to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team he disliked the most is now on his wish list. The team he loved the most, the Yankees, fired him and they never looked back. I guess that is because he was an outsider, a Brooklyn boy.

MILLER HUGGINS

Joe Torre should own a baseball team, any team he can buy, because it would be good for the team, the sport and Joe Torre. I never thought much of Torre as manager of the Mets, and managing the Yankees meant you came to work, put on a uniform and sent the team out onto the field and waited for them to beat the other guys into submission, and then got manager of the year awards and World Series rings. It used to happen a lot to Casey Stengel that way. If you could, you would ask Miller Huggins and Joe McCarty etc., and they would say: Yup!

But Joe Torre is a classy guy who doesn’t look like someone you want to cross, but rather have him on your side. He never embarrassed himself, even when he hit into those three double plays, because he played to win, played hard and was a pro.

I hope Joe gets his wish, and soon, because we need him in baseball, especially after the way the McCort’s have treated a great franchise filled with pride and traditon.

Go Joe!