"Big Pappa" Steinbrenner is at it again. In what has become an annual tradition, the Yankee owner wanted to fire his long-time manager Joe Torre, yet has once again been talked out of doing so. Big mistake.
Torre has had a great run with the Yankees, making six World Series and winning four of them during his 11-year regime. Yet all four of those wins came in the first half of his tenure. In the words of the late WWE wrestler Owen Hart, "Enough is enough and it's time for a change!"
The team is tuning Torre out. Either that or it's too focused on his ever-growing nose hair. Though the Yankees finished with the best record in baseball, this was Torre's worst year as a manager. His handling of the Alex Rodriguez situation was awful. Torre never publicly backed Rodriguez, instead allowing players such as "BALCO" Giambi and god, I mean Derek Jeter, to talk down to A-Rod in the clubhouse. Torre should have known that Rodriguez is a whiny baby with the maturity of a six-year old, and that every negative comment towards Rodriguez would send him deeper into a tailspin. As described in a Sports Illustrated article, Torre allowed the clubhouse to turn on Rodriguez.
Some may say that was not Torre's fault and that Rodriguez is a grown man who should be able to defend himself. Those people are wrong. It is the manager's job, especially in New York, especially with an owner like Steinbrenner, to protect his players from media controversy and to maintain chemistry in the clubhouse. By all accounts, Torre failed miserably at this aspect this season.
The final straw was Torre's tactical errors heading in to the decisive game four in this season's American League Division Series against the Detroit Tigers, which the Yankees lost 8-3. In this game, Torre benched the team leader in home runs, Giambi, and moved the team leader in RBIs, Rodriguez, to eighth. With A-Rod's frail psyche, there was no way he would perform knowing that he had been demoted to eighth in the batting order, so Torre may as well have benched him.
The Yankees will now enter another off-season, which will bring about sure changes. Rodriguez will most likely be traded. There will be a big name free agent and Sheffield's contract option will most likely not be picked up. However, the one change that needed to be made will not, and Yankee fans will go through another season wondering if their manager is awake in the dugout.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
