Keidel: A Night With No. 6
By Jason Keidel
F. Scott Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in American lives. He never met Joe Torre.
Joe Torre, the emblem of endurance, retired last week as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, with "retire" being the most elastic word of a lifer's lexicon.
Admit it – you accidentally called Joe Girardi "Joe Torre" for the first few months of the 2008 season. It makes sense. For a dozen years, Torre was family.
We know his brooding gaze from the dugout, the stiff gait from bench to mound, the slight, forward tilt and fingers tucked into his back pockets. Whatever move he made seemed to work, and when it didn't he reassured us with avuncular comfort that everything would be fine. And for more years than we're allowed to expect, it was.
And on the night the Yankees unveil a monument to their iconic owner, the most successful in baseball, they were joined by his most successful manager, in his first appearance in any edifice called Yankee Stadium since 2007. It was a chance for the team, town, and Torre to engage in a metaphorical group hug.
If this indeed is Torre's curtain call, it makes sense that it came the year his former boss left, since neither man was more successful than when together. Torre properly tipped his cap to George Steinbrenner, who gave life to a managerial career that was decidedly dead.
Steinbrenner, to the confusion of a continent, hired Torre in 1996 after Torre was fired thrice as a manager. No one really knows why the bond worked, but it did. And for that, Torre should thank The Boss, who made Torre a rich man and padded his golden years.
Cynics will assert that Torre's genius was commensurate with his ability to start a game with Derek Jeter and end it with Mariano Rivera. No doubt great players make great managers, but it's obtuse to suggest that anyone would have done the same with the Yankees considering Joe Girardi missed the playoffs his first season as manager.
Many people (including yours truly) would have fired Torre after the singular choke to Boston in 2004, but perhaps that reflects less baseball acumen than the jaded children the Yankees made us with their incessant winning.
The relationship ended poorly – as most do – blurred by the static of bitterness and notions of betrayal, cloaking a run of brilliant baseball that New York hadn't seen since 1949 – 1953. For five years, Torre made the World Series our rite of autumn, winning four championships. Perhaps Sandy Alomar is the only reason the Yankees didn't win five. When the Yanks got the yips in the spring, they still sprung in the fall, due in no small measure to Joe Torre.
Depending on your view, Torre was either a victim of grumpy ownership or his instant, stratospheric success. I interviewed Torre for a local newspaper in the spring, and he told me that the colossal expectations wore more heavily on him than anything. When I was done I realized there wasn't a question I could ask that he hasn't answered, his sleepy baritone in absolute control of the conversation.
Rumors are rumbling that Torre would join the Mets if properly serenaded. It would accomplish nothing other than reach for a vocational itch that lifers are never able to properly scratch.
Until yesterday, the Yankees refused to publicly acknowledge Torre or his accomplishments. It seems edicts abound; nothing else can account for the chilling corporate silence over a man who did precisely what Yankees are supposed to do: win. The team won't retire his number among the hallowed soil of his single-digit colleagues. It is silly, and we hope no one else has to die for it to finally happen.
Frank McCourt's very public and pungent divorce has made a mess of the Dodgers. But it sets a gripping synergy between Torre and his former team – Torre, born in Brooklyn, managed a team born in Brooklyn, and feelings that neither should have left.
Feel free to email me: Jakster1@mac.com
