King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Steinbrenner's nuts, but firing Torre wouldn't be a huge mistake. Plus: Prediction pratfall, "Prince Albert," Fox's Terrell talk.
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Oct. 9, 2006 | Word out of New York is that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner is about to fire manager Joe Torre after 11 years, 10 division titles and a wild card, six pennants and four World Series championships.
Some of us have been waiting for this Steinbrenner meltdown for a long time, for that moment when the old Queeg-like George returned in full force, bad-mouthing players and, especially, firing managers willy-nilly.
Specifically we've been waiting for the day the Boss issued walking papers to the only manager of the last quarter century who has managed to turn the Yankees' financial advantage into success on the diamond.
In the 14 years between their then last pennant and the day the Yankees hired Torre after the 1995 season, they'd been managed by Bob Lemon, Gene Michael, Clyde King, Billy Martin, Yogi Berra, Martin again, Lou Piniella, Martin again, Dallas Green, Bucky Dent, Stump Merrill and Buck Showalter. What they had to show for it was a wild-card spot and first-round elimination in Showalter's last year, though to be fair they'd been leading the American League East by six and a half games in '94 when a strike ended the season.
So now that the firing day appears to be at hand, it's kind of a letdown. Because it no longer seems that giving Torre the ax would be a colossal blunder. I don't think I'd do it if I were George Steinbrenner, but then again I wouldn't wear all those turtlenecks, and who am I to tell Steinbrenner what to do? After all, he hasn't been convicted of anything in years.
Firing Torre would be an overreaction to the result of four ballgames against the Detroit Tigers and a misapplication of blame for the lack of a World Series title since way back in the mists of history, in 2000.
There are a couple of truisms about postseason baseball. One is that good pitching and defense usually beat good hitting. The Tigers had much better pitching and defense than the Yankees. Another is that the postseason is a crapshoot, that luck plays a huge role in who gets to four wins first out of seven games, and an even bigger role in who gets to three wins first out of five games.
The Tigers thrashed the Yankees, so where's the luck? Well, just one example: From the Yankees' point of view, it was unlucky that Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman and Kenny Rogers picked last week to throw fantastic games. They've all had bad days recently.