Joe Torre May Be Doing Finest Job Ever Managing Yankees

Amazingly, there are some fans who occasionally call for New York Yankees manager Joe Torre to be fired. You can find those comments scattered on message boards every time the Yankees lose a close game or the bullpen gives up a late lead.

I say Torre can manage the Yankees until he's 80 if he wants. Most reasonable fans - those who recognize the Yankees can't go 162-0 - might argue that Torre is doing his best managerial job ever - and that's saying something because he does have four World Series rings.

He won't win Manager of the Year honors because that award is going to Detroit Tigers skipper Jim Leyland, but this season has been Torre's finest hour, holding together a team ravaged by injuries.

Until Bobby Abreu arrived from the Phillies at the trade deadline, Torre pieced together a patchwork outfield with rookie Melky Cabrera in left field and either Bernie Williams or Aaron Guiel (recently sent down to Columbus) patrolling right field. The Yankees have been without a pair of 100-RBI men - Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield - since May and second baseman Robinson Cano just recently returned after missing more than a month. That's one third of the starting lineup sidelined and still they held a two-game lead over the Boston Red Sox as of August 6.

Torre occasionally gets criticized for not being fiery enough, for not giving his players a kick in the butt once in awhile. There are those who want Lou Piniella, who managed the Yankees in the 1980s, back in the Bronx. While watching "Sweet Lou's" famous temper tantrums are always entertaining, he is not exactly known for his patience with pitchers and it's hard to imagine that his aggressive, in-your-face approach would have a positive effect on veterans players.

Anyway, Torre is not going anywhere. He will leave the Yankees on his own terms, whenever that is.

Perhaps his greatest accomplishment is not the four World Series titles but surviving 11 years working for his boss, George Steinbrenner, who used to change managers the way most people change shirts. Torre is the face of the Yankees every bit as much as Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera. Steinbrenner can't touch Torre because it would create a mutiny in the clubhouse and among Yankees fans, and he knows it.

Torre's greatest strength as a manager isn't so much the X's and O's but the manner in which he handles his players, his grace under fire. You want this man with you in a fox hole because he never gets ruffled. Maybe he is too much of a politician and just once you'd like to see him stop making excuses for his I-can't-get-any-love third baseman, Alex Rodriguez. But Torre is loyal to his players, sometimes to a fault.

That's why most of them - there probably have been a few exceptions over the years - would run through a wall for him. Derek Jeter still refers to his manager as "Mr. Torre". That's respect.

Even when the Yankees fell four games behind the Red Sox in July, Torre never panicked, never overreacted - unlike most fans who were ready to jump off the George Washington Bridge. You saw the same man in the dugout every day; calm, evenhanded. It's been like that for 11 years.

Of course, it wasn't like that when he arrived in the Bronx in 1996. Torre replaced a popular manager in Buck Showalter and was not well received. The New York tabloids called him "Clueless Joe" and predicted he had no idea what he was getting himself into. They were right.

Who knew Torre would win four World Series titles?

Torre came to New York with a spotty record as a manager, experiencing limited success in previous stops with the New York Mets, Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals. After getting fired by the Cardinals, the team for whom he starred as a player, Torre figured his managerial career was over and went to work for the Anaheim Angels as a broadcaster.

When Steinbrenner came calling, Torre figured he'd give managing one more shot. He was 55 years old. It turned out to be the best move Steinbrenner ever made and the best move Torre ever made.

Torre instantly won over the fans during a Cinderella 1996 season that was especially sweet for the Brooklyn, New York native.

Not only did he make it to the World Series for the first time as either a player or manager but the day before the Yankees won their first title in 18 years, his brother, Frank, received a heart transplant. Three more titles followed in the next four years and Torre went from being a manager with a losing record to a manager headed to the Hall of Fame.

Obviously, it helps to have good players and an owner who will do anything to succeed. Even the best managers can't win with lousy players. But Torre is now one of only four managers to win at least 1,000 games with the Yankees, joining an illustrious group that includes Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Miller Huggins. Earlier this season, he also moved into the top 10 on the all-time managerial wins list.

Joe Torre has come a long way from those "Clueless Joe" days.