Joe Torre's Yankee Manager Career

Early Managing Failures Wiped Away By Four World Series Rings

Oct 13, 2007

When he was hired to manage the Yankees in 1996, no one could have predicted that Joe Torre would enjoy such longevity and success as skipper of the Bronx Zoo.

The Yankees Hire Joe Torre to Replace Buck Showalter

In 1995, the New York Yankees won the first-ever American League Wild Card and reached the post-season for the first time since 1981. Although the team lost the inaugural American League Divisional Series to the Seattle Mariners, most Yankee fans and sportswriters assumed that manager Buck Showalter would be offered a new contract based on his team's regular season success and impressive playoff performance.

Instead, in a move that surprised and shocked many a baseball follower, Yankees' principal owner George Steinbrenner hired Joe Torre to skipper the club.

It was not a popular move among the New York fans and media. Torre's managerial career had been mediocre at best, and more than a few writers openly questioned the man's baseball intelligence. The back page of the New York Daily News ran a full picture of Torre with a caption that read: "Clueless Joe," a not-too-clever parody on the great Shoeless Joe Jackson. Others called Torre a "yes man" who was installed as a mere puppet so that Steinbrenner could pull the strings and control the club from Tampa.

Early Yankees Success in 1996

The Yankees got off to a hot start in the 1996 season, and remained in first place for the entire second half of the season, finishing the year with a 92-70 record and their first American League East title in fifteen years. When the Bronx Bombers defeated the Rangers in the ALDS, and took down the Orioles in the ALCS, the Yankees were poised for their first World Series appearance since 1981.

For Torre, the pennant was particularly sweet because he had played for eighteen years and managed for another thirteen but had never made it to the World Series. That was 4,280 straight games as a player and manager without one minute spent between the lines in a Fall Classic.

After dropping the first two games at Yankee Stadium to the Atlanta Braves, Torre was sitting in his office when he received a call from the Boss. As Torre later told reporters, "George was upset, and he was nervous, and I didn't know what to say, so I told him not to worry. We'll win three straight games in Atlanta and wrap it up back in New York in Game 6."

Then Torre and the Yankees went out and did exactly that. They swept the Braves in Atlanta, and returned home to clinch the first Yankee World Championship with a 3-2 victory behind fabulous pitching from starter Jimmy Key, middle reliever Mariano Rivera and closer John Wetteland. Torre finally had his ring. Tears and champagne flowed, and Yankee fans rejoiced. But that was only the beginning of Torre's success as Yankees manager.

After a heartbreaking loss in the 1997 ALDS to the Cleveland Indians, the Yankees returned with a vengeance for the 1998 season. The team won 114 games, which at the time was the most regular season wins in American League history. The team then powered through the playoffs, going 11-2 and sweeping the San Diego Padres in the 1998 World Series. Their combined 125 regular season and playoff wins is still the most in baseball history. Some call that squad the greatest team of all time.

A Three-Peat to Close out the Century

Behind the steady leadership of Torre, the Yankee machine kept rolling towards the end of the century, winning the unoffical title of "Team of the Decade" when they swept the Atlanta Braves in the 1999 World Series. In 2000, they faced the Mets in the first "Subway Series" since 1956, and beat their New York City rivals in five games on the strength of World Series MVP Derek Jeter.

Repeated Heartbreak in the New Millenium

Despite Torre's almost magical success in the 1990s and 2000, the new millennium would prove to be a source of great angst and turmoil for the team and its skipper. After two remarkable comeback wins in Games 4 and 5 of the 2001 World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Yankees found themselves ahead by a score of 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7, with the previously un-hittable Mariano Rivera on the mound. In a flash of cheap hits, stolen bases, and one costly Rivera error, the D-Backs won the game and the Series. Yankee fans were shocked.

But next year never came. Despite a dramatic series-winning walk-off home run by Aaron Boone in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS against the Red Sox, the Yankees lost the World Series in 2003 to the young and overachieving Florida Marlins. The next year the team blew a three games to none lead in the A.L. Championship Series against the Red Sox in what has been called the biggest playoff choke in history.

The next three years may have been worse for the team's followers (and for Fox Television's World Series ratings) as the Yankees were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs in each of the 2005, 2006 and 2007 seasons.

The championship dearth has led to almost universal speculation that Torre's days as Yankee manager were over. As of October 13, 2007, however, he still held the job.

Joe Torre's Managerial Record

Should Torre get fired or retire, his final managerial record will include six American League pennants, four World Series rings, three Manager of the Year awards, six stints as skipper of the American League All-Star team, and 2,067 wins, which is the ninth most in baseball history. Regardless of where Joe Torre is working during the 2008 season, one thing is for certain: the man will soon be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

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