Torre Discusses The Fallout From Book

Jack Curry of the NY Times sat down with Joe Torre for his first interview since all this news of the book. Here's some of what Torre had to say...

First about the implication that he felt betrayed by Brian Cashman:

“I heard the word betrayed and I knew that it wasn’t part of the actual book,” Torre said in a telephone interview from Hawaii on Tuesday morning. “I can tell you this much: I know there’s stuff Brian and I disagreed on, and I had one perception and he had another, which, to me, there’s nothing wrong with that. We’re obviously two different people.”

“As far as the betrayed thing, that’s the reason I called him,” Torre added. “I knew there was no word betrayed in there in regards to feeling that he left me out there somewhere.”

...“There’s stuff in there where, from my angle, I looked at it one way and I’m sure, from his angle, he probably looked at it a different way,”...

“If you’ve been together with someone that long, it would be suspect if you did agree on everything,” Torre said on the telephone. “I told Brian that we’d always be friends. Whether we got along or not, one is the business side. The other is personal.”

About A-Rod:

“I don’t think I said anything about A-Rod that I didn’t say already,”

About the contents of the book:

“Knowing that my name is on it, I know I’m going to have to answer for it,”...

“I’m comfortable with what I contributed to the book,” Torre said, “even though I’m probably going to get more credit or more blame than I deserve, whichever way you want to look at it.”

The article also mentions that Torre will be on Larry King Live on Friday to discuss the book.

Torre Was Not Happy With The Makeup of The Post-2001 Teams

From Neil Best:

Beyond the blunt critiques of Alex Rodriguez and rising tensions with Brian Cashman, one theme dominates "The Yankee Years," the new book "co-authored" by Joe Torre:

That the Yankees of the former manager's final six seasons were a self-absorbed, overpaid imitation of the famously gritty bunch that brought him four rings in his first six years.

"It was just not an unselfish team," Torre says of the revelation that hit him in 2002.

"The team wasn't tough enough . . . A lot of those players are more concerned about what it looks like as opposed to getting dirty and just getting it done. Those other teams, they were ferocious."

I've pretty much felt the exact same way for a number of years now. I also think that the team had lost sight of the importance of a very good pitching staff since the 2003 season ended. That changed this off-season.

Here's some more quotes about certain Yanks who Torre apparently didn't like:

First Jason Giambi:

"They wanted Jason," Torre says. "George [Steinbrenner] really liked the big bopper. I was outvoted, which was fine."

Then some others:

Kevin Brown breaks his pitching hand punching a concrete pillar. "That's the most -- selfish thing I've ever seen anybody do!" Torre screams at him.

Randy Johnson? "The biggest surprise to me was how Randy Johnson could get rattled."

Carl Pavano? "The players all hated him. It was no secret."

Not many Yankees fans like these guys either, but then again, they didn't wrote a book about it. Still, I'm not angered by any of this --- Sorry guys. But with that said, that doesn't mean that I don't think Torre is wrong for airing his dirty laundry out in the public, I'm just not personally upset by it.

Wright Designated For Assignment

Yankees left-hander Chase Wright has been designated for assignment to make room for Andy Pettitte on the 40-man roster. The Yanks now have ten days to trade Wright, to outright him to the minors, or to put him on waivers.

A-Rod Not Bothered By Torre Book

From John Harper:

Alex Rodriguez told friends Monday that he is "not bothered at all" by the reports that Joe Torre apparently took some shots at him in his forthcoming book, and dismissed talk of an "A-Fraud" persona or any Derek Jeter obsession as old news that no longer applies to his standing in the Yankee clubhouse.

"He laughed at the stuff because he is so beyond all of that," one person close to A-Rod said Monday. "Personally he feels like he's in a great space in his life and felt very comfortable last year in the clubhouse and with his relationship with his teammates."

As for Torre, A-Rod indicated that anything his former manager may say about him couldn't hurt him because, as one friend put it, "He doesn't feel like he had any real relationship with (Torre)."

In fact, people close to A-Rod say that he heard Torre characterized him as "a pretty boy" to his confidants during the four years they were together as player and manager, that Torre's close relationship with Jeter kept him from ever warming up to A-Rod.

A-Rod also told people that nothing Torre could say would be more revealing of how he felt about his player than the act of batting him eighth in the lineup in Game 4 of the 2006 playoff series with the Tigers.

"Alex was really hurt by that," one friend of A-Rod's said Monday. "He believed that Torre did that to embarrass him and he knew then what Torre thought of him.

"So anything that comes out now wouldn't compare to that. He's just surprised that Torre would talk about these kinds of things because he always told the players the clubhouse and the bond with teammates was sacred, and not to be broken this way."

Without reading the book and knowing exactly what's in it, this is clearly Joe's worst offense (so far). Torre does come out looking like a hypocrite with this book. So in that respect I agree with some of you who are bashing him.

Also, it's fairly obvious that these two really don't like each other, and probably never did.

"He's heard the A-Fraud stuff, and he has admitted he tried too hard to make everyone like him when he came over to the Yankees. But since then he has become more at ease in the clubhouse, and he believes he is more accepted as one of the guys. He has taken the young Latin guys like Melky (Cabrera) and (Robinson) Cano under his wing and they really look up to him. He believes things are a lot different now."

Over the past two seasons A-Rod has seemed to find his place in that clubhouse. And seeing people like Pettitte, Damon, and Cashman come out publicly to defend him in recent days is more evidence of this.

Cashman: Yanks Should Rally Around A-Rod

From ESPN:

"I think we've gone through so much of the Alex stuff that, you know, if anything, maybe this brings people closer together," Cashman said Monday during a conference call to announce Andy Pettitte was returning to the team in 2009.

"There's always going to be some controversy that surrounds this club," Cashman said. "The best way to try to deal with it is, I guess, rally around each other the best you can if there's real feelings there."

Cashman said that when Rodriguez became a free agent after the 2007 season, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Pettitte all urged him to re-sign A-Rod.

"That was real," Cashman said. "It was offered up."

Yesterday in the NY Post, Johnny Damon expressed his support for his third baseman and his former manager:

"Unfortunately, when books come out, no good comes of it . . . I know Joe has a lot of respect for Alex. I haven't talked to Joe, but I know what happens when books come out.

"Alex is a great teammate," Damon said. "We have his back."

Speaking of Pettitte, he claims he's never heard anyone use the term A-Fraud:

"I have never one time heard of the term 'A-Fraud' until I saw that rolling on the TV, I guess this morning or whenever they started reporting it," said Pettitte, who rejoined the Yankees for the 2007 season. "If it did go on, it went on before I was there."

I'm not sure I believe that - I go to about 20 games a year and hear it yelled out by the crowd all the time - but hey, I give him credit for being a good teammate.

Bowa: It was a joke

From Mark Hale:

Alex Rodriguez may have been referred to as "A-Fraud," but it was in jest, says former Yankee coach Larry Bowa.

Bowa - Torre's third-base coach with the Dodgers who filled the same role with the Yankees in 2006-07 - told The Post that former Yankee bullpen catcher and batting-practice pitcher Mike Borzello, a good friend of A-Rod, used to joke around with the star player by sometimes referring to him as "A-Fraud."

Bowa, though, was adamant that it was always done as a joke, simply from one of A-Rod's friends. Never, Bowa said, was it done with malice.

"I have never heard players say it," Bowa said.

"When Alex walked in, [Borzello would] go, 'What do you got today?' "

If Rodriguez felt good, he was referred to as A-Rod. If not, it might be A-Fraud, Bowa said.

He added it might even depend on the opponent - that if, say, Toronto's Roy Halladay was on the mound, the joke might have been, "We might have a little A-Fraud today."

"It wasn't a malicious thing," Bowa stressed. "It was when you stretch and guys joke around with each other. It wasn't malicious at all."

That seems pretty harmless to me.

If this is how it's explained in Torre's book are some of you still going to be as enraged as you have been so far?

Andy Always Wanted To Remain With Yanks

From the AP via NJ.com:

Andy Pettitte's only thought was to stay with the Yankees. He had no interest in returning to his hometown Houston Astros.

Still, the 36-year-old left-hander was bothered when the Yankees wanted to cut his salary from $16 million to $10 million.

"Heck, the bottom line is I'm a man, and I guess it does take a shot at your pride a little bit," he said. "But when you put all that aside, I wanted to play for the New York Yankees and, you know, that was the bottom line. I wanted to be there. I wanted to play in that new stadium."

"It just got to the point where Randy called me and said, 'I think this is it, buddy,'" Pettitte said. "It didn't take me long to decide because I knew that was where I was going to play."

The article also says that during the December 11th meeting in Texas between Cashman and Pettitte, Pettitte told Cash that he was willing to sign a deal that included performance bonuses. The two sides had been in negotiations ever since, before finally coming to an agreement today.

I figured this was the case the whole time. Andy had no intentions of playing anywhere else, but his agents, like all agents, were trying to get as much as possible from the Yanks.

It may look like the long negotiations hurt Andy, after all, he could be getting $10 million guaranteed. But to be honest, the deal he got isn't as bad as it seems. Yes the base salary is only $5.5 million, but the bonuses within the deal are easily attainable, and barring major injury he should receive the entire $12 million.

An Excerpt from The Yankees Years

SI.com has just posted an excerpt from Joe Torre's The Yankees Years. It's from the section of the book about how Torre and the Yankees brass handled the meeting in Tampa following the 2007 playoff loss to Cleveland. He doesn't seem to happy with the way Cashman handled the situation.

It's worth the read, check it out.

I wanted to update this post with some quotes from the excerpt. I apologize for not posting it before. This happened just after the meeting concluded and it was known Torre would no longer be managing the Yankees:

So that was it. The 12-year Torre era had come to a nonnegotiable end. Torre's run ended with a meeting that took little more than 10 minutes. As Torre got up from his seat in Steinbrenner's office, Hal Steinbrenner said to him, "The door's always open. You can always work for the YES Network."

Torre was too stunned to speak, caught between bemusement and anger. Did the Boss's son really just dangle the consolation of working for the Yankees-run regional television network after the Yankees refused to negotiate with the second-­winningest manager in franchise history?

Is Torre being arrogant here or is he justified to feel a little insulted?

Prior to the meeting Torre and Brian Cashman had spoken about a two-year deal.

“Cash, I have an idea. What about a two-year contract? It ­doesn’t even really matter what the money is. Two years, and if I get fired in the first year, the second year is guaranteed. But if I get fired after the first year, I don’t get the full amount of the second year, just a buyout. The money doesn’t matter. I mean, as long as it’s not just something ridiculous. It’s not about the money. It’s the second year.”

This idea was never spoken about during the meeting in Tampa. This conversation between the two took place immediately after the meeting:

"Cash," Torre asked, "they had no interest in that buyout proposal, the one I gave you over the phone?"

Cashman looked at Torre oddly, as if this were something new. "Uh, I really ­didn't understand it," Cashman said. "Remind me, what was it again?"

"Two-year contract, whatever the number. If they fire me during the first year, they pay me both years. If they fire me after the first year, they pay me some reduced amount we can talk about."

"I'll see."

Cashman walked back into Steinbrenner's office.

Torre was incredulous.

"I'm thinking, Well, s---! He never told them!" Torre said.

About 30 seconds later, the book says, Cashman comes back out of the office and tells Torre that the team is not interested in doing that.

It's safe to say that this is about the time Torre got pissed at, and lost trust in Cashman.

... at the moment when Torre was searching for some way to save his job and turned to Cashman in his moment of need, Cashman did not so much as pass on to his bosses a proposal from Torre -- a simple one, too, one that was not at all difficult to understand. Twelve years together, and it ends like this.

Come to think of it, Torre thought, Cashman had said nothing during the entire meeting. Cashman was the general manager who had persuaded Steinbrenner after the 2005 season to put in writing that Cashman would have control over all baseball operations. The manager is a fairly important part of baseball operations. And when the future employment of the manager was being discussed, how was it that the empowered general manager had nothing at all to say?

"Cash was sitting right over my right shoulder," Torre said, "and never uttered a sound the whole meeting." Cashman, for his part, says simply, "It was Joe's meeting."

"I thought Cash was an ally, I really did," Torre says. "You know, we had some differences on coaches, and the usefulness of the coaches. I know he ­didn't think much of Guidry. And [former bench coach Don] Zimmer. You know, Zimmer ­didn't trust Cash, and I disagreed with Zimmer vehemently for the longest time. Then, you know, you start thinking about things ... I have a, I don't want to say it's a weakness, but I want to trust people. And I do trust people until I'm proved wrong. And it's not going to keep me from trusting somebody else tomorrow, because it's the only way I can do my job."

I know what you're thinking; spare us the sob story about how trusting you are Joe. And I agree.

But regarding Torre's feelings about Cashman and how he handled the situation, I can understand why he feels the way he does. I Maybe it shouldn't be in a book, but I'm not outraged about it like some. Plus, it makes for some entertaining reading.