Joe Torre To Pen Memoir On Yankee Years
Joe Torre, named last week as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers after ending a 12-year reign with the New York Yankees, is working on a memoir.
The book, currently untitled, will be co-authored by Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci and will include Torre's memories of the Yankees, with whom he won four World Series championships, and general thoughts on the game.
Doubleday, an imprint of Random House Inc., will publish the book in the spring of 2009.
"Baseball has changed dramatically since I began my tenure with the Yankees," Torre said in a statement issued Thursday by Doubleday. "It was a wonderful 12 years and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and perspective on how the game has evolved."
According to Doubleday, Torre will explain his "decision to walk way from the job of manager of the Yankees, but only as the endgame in explaining in unprecedented detail what history will record as the `Torre Era."'
Photos: Book People
"In addition to sharing Torre's knowledge of the game, the authors will examine the rapidly changing baseball landscape, explaining how developments such as revenue sharing and the rise of statistical analysis have made the future existence of dynasties virtually impossible," the statement reads.
Torre signed a three-year, $13 million contract to manage the Dodgers last Thursday, exactly two weeks after walking away from the New York Yankees when they offered a one-year contract worth $5 million plus $3 million in performance bonuses he termed "an insult." The Yankees were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs this fall and haven't won a World Series since 2000.
Torre completed a three-year, $19.2 million contract with the Yankees this year.
Financial terms of Torre's book were not disclosed. The biggest sports book deal in recent memory was for tennis great Andre Agassi, who has an international following and reportedly received at least $5 million from Alfred A. Knopf in an agreement announced last March.
"While as a corporate policy we never reveal the advances we pay authors, I can say there are no incentive clauses in the contract," William Thomas, editor-in-chief of the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, said in a statement about the Torre deal.