Hard as Joe Torre tries to spin his thoughts about Alex Rodriguez, we've heard from multiple sources that when A-Rod was a free agent last offseason, Torre advised the Dodgers not to touch him.He really hates A-Rod.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Torre Told Dodgers Not To Sign A-Rod
From Jayson Stark:
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I'm telling you guys, there's a rift between Jeter and A-Rod bigger than what we know it to be. And that is the reason why Torre hates A-Rod
As i said many times before. I don't care how you feel about Arod. The guy doesn't deserve this. he took the line up embarrassment like a man and didn't say a peep about this disgrace of man.
I am sorry to say but this doesn't mean Torre hates A-Rod. This may mean Torre does not believe A-Rod has what it takes to be a solid performer in key situations. So he may think Rodriguez is extremely over payed and over hyped. This does not mean Torre thinks A-rod is a bad person
Interesting Newsweek article here:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/181957
With one quote from Torre of particular interest to me:
"When Alex came, he was used to being No. 1, and with good reason, because he's always the most talented one around. I talked to Alex about just being one of the guys. He had trouble making that adjustment. He wanted to be—I don't want to say the most important guy—but the one who was counted on. He gets in his own way a lot. When he makes an out, he makes it seem later like it was no big deal. But you know he's churning inside. [He's] got to get beyond that and not be so concerned with failing.
What's so wrong with wanting to be the guy, or being chewed up inside because you made out, or didn't get a clutch hit. This description sounds like it could be of Paul O'Neill honestly. The difference of course being that Torre liked O'Neill. But everyone knows that O'Neill was though of as ill-tempered and selfish when he came over to the Yankees. Of course that was just his ferocity and competitive nature, and his drive to get a hit every single time at-bat. And Torre embraced that. Maybe if he embraced A-Rod's ways rather than trying to change A-Rod (or every other big name free agent the Yanks acquired) into Derek Jeter, he would have made some headway, and even helped him be productive and channel that energy in the big spot. Its obvious that the only person who was more threatened by A-Rod than Jeter, was Torre. Since A-Rod's ability dwarfs Jeter's, its reasonable to think Torre was worried and did all he could to protect Derek. That's what this is all about. Jeter was Torre's soul mate, his cuddle bun, like his son, and A-Rod was the big bad wolf who said not nice things about him in Esquire magazine.
He said, She said, Torre said, Cashman said, arod said...getting tired of this crap.
Anon 3,
This alone doesn't mean Torre hates A-Rod, but this plus the book, plus batting him 8th in Detroit, plus a number of other things, leads me to believe Torre hates him.
I understand why he doesn't like A-Rod or doesn't want him on the team. He probably didn't want any BS coming in LA. Ever sense he came to new york hes done or said a lot of stupid things. Not saying I don't like him either.
What?! Torre is looking more and more like a douche bag?!
Well, I never...
He's starting to get on my nervs too. But he's still a good man.
So Torre told the Yankees not to sign Beltran because he didn't want to be the man and the Dodgers not to sign A-Rod because he wants to be the man?
I've lost touch with someone I worked with in 2004 and I owe them an apology. Mike C. I'm sorry. He told me that Jeter and Torre had the clubhouse afraid to welcome Alex to the team. I said that was ridiculous but the events of the past few days is really making me wonder.
Joe is a grade-A phony. I wrote earlier this week in my Subway Squawkers blog about how he suggested that the Dodgers might sign A-Rod. Meanwhile, he's trashing him to the Dodgers. What a fraud.
Ian O'Connor said that Joe called A-Rod a derogatory five-letter word much worse than "fraud" to members of the Yankee family.
It makes you wonder about how many of the problems in the Yankee clubhouse over A-Rod were instigated by Joe.
This is turning out to be like all the other over rated, over talked about, over hyped stories this off season. We should wait for the book to come out, read it, talk about it for a 2-3 days, see who's right, who's wrong, who's great, who's an a-hole, and then close the chapter. We don't want to look like idiots if Torre actually said good things about the players. This might only be a way to sell the book and nothing more. Just like the dumb movies that have the best previews. Can the season start already?! Can we please get on with it?! Now i'm just frustrated.
It would be great if we could move time forward to April, but we can't.
This is what's in the news right now, and like I mentioned to someone yesterday, with nothing else going on at least we have something to discuss.
Anyway, I still think people should read the book, but Torre is still going to look somewhat bad by the book. At the very least he looks like a hypocrite.
I don't see why we need to read the whole book before commenting on it. If I go to a restaurant, and they serve me an appetizer crawling with bugs, I'm not sticking around for dessert, no matter how tasty they claim the rest of the meal might be.
Lisa,
I don't think people need to read the book to comment, but to come to any major conclusions I think it's important to read the book and know exactly what's in there.
Jack Curry was on Yankees Hot Stove last night and even he said that the book isn't what these excerpts are making it out to be.
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