Mike Lupica: Joe is Still Cool

Torre's the best man for the job

New York Daily News

Sunday, August 12th 2007, 4:00 AM





Joe Torre is still center of things with Yanks, whether it's with soccer star David Beckham (above) or joking around with Alex Rodriguez (below).

Soon this will be called Joe Torre's best managing job ever. It is about that time. Not all of Torre's regular-season work has been called his best since the Yankees last won the World Series. A lot of it sure has.

The truth is, Torre is doing the same job this year he always does, whether the Yankees finally run away with their division or have to come from way behind the way they have this season. The Yankees might as well give him a contract extension now.

Torre hasn't somehow raised the level of his own performance as guys like Abreu and Cano and Matsui have finally started to carry their fair share of the load. He hasn't started out-managing everybody, because he frankly never did that.

But you only make a move if you think you can find somebody as good, or somebody better, to replace him. There isn't anybody like that out there.

There was the time in 1978 when the Yankees were coming back on the Red Sox from 14 behind, and the Yankee manager, Bob Lemon, was being treated as some sort of genius for the way his team was coming back.

And one day in his office I asked Lem, sitting there with a glass of whiskey in his hand, the secret of his success. "I got the pitching straightened out," he said, "and then hoped Reggie hit."



This could be Torre's final season as Yankee manager.

It still works that way, even with a manager on his way to the Hall of Fame the way Joe Torre is. When he calls a team meeting and the Yankees win, it's sheer brilliance. When he doesn't - well, then what? Now we hear that the Yankees are almost too loaded with talent. What, they weren't before?

If the Yankees weren't going to go for Lou Piniella after last season, they shouldn't think about having somebody else managing next season, whether they make the playoffs or not.

Torre himself has already called this his toughest season. But the Yankees have come out of it, and been the best team in baseball for more than a month, and are making the run they had to make now. For all the pitching problems they had early, they were too good not to make a run. No matter how many people wrote them off.

You better believe they should make the playoffs. They might even catch the Red Sox, who keep looking as if they need another bat more than they needed Eric Gagne, who has made Kyle Farnsworth look like a superstar, fireballing setup man since Boston got him from Texas and the American League East race was once again declared over.

If the Yankees were willing to negotiate with Alex Rodriguez during the season, they should give the same respect to the manager, who is still as skillful managing the Yankee brand and his own brand as he is his baseball team.

It is clear now that Torre is judged on how the Yankees do during the regular season and is no longer judged on the postseason. If not, he would have been fired already for what has happened in the postseason over the past five years. The owner had a perfect right to think about firing him last October after the Yankees curled up into a ball the way they did against the Tigers. Especially with Piniella - doing some of his best work with the Cubs - standing right there.

And, boy oh boy, there aren't many managers, even with Torre's amazing resume, who would have survived blowing a 3-0 lead to the Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series.

Joe survived the collapse against the Red Sox, has survived three first-round losses in five years. He exists in the safe house all coaches and managers hope to find someday, which means he gets more credit than he deserves when his players perform, and not nearly as much blame when those same players under-perform. Torre isn't the one who created a climate and a culture like that around himself. We did.

He will have some real good leverage if the Yankees do make the playoffs, not so much if the Yankees fall short of the Red Sox, or in the wild-card race. If the Yankees do want him back, whether he makes the playoffs or not, Torre also has to know he isn't going to make close to what he's making here - $7 million a year - anywhere else. Tony La Russa isn't even making half what Torre makes in St. Louis, for example.

The Yankees have a decision to make on A-Rod after the season, how much they are willing to pay him. They have to do the same with Jorge Posada and Mo Rivera and, who knows, even Family Guy Clemens.

There is also a decision to be made on the manager. Bring him back. If he is here next year, it means he managed the Yankees longer than Casey Stengel did. Joe had 1,143 victories as Yankee manager through Friday night. Casey had 1,149. Joe has four World Series, Casey had seven. Casey made it with the Yankees until he was 70, even though there were times when people thought anybody could have managed the horses he had. Joe will be 68 next season, even if he looks older than old Case some nights as he limps up and down his dugout.

If the Yankees didn't make the move to Piniella after last year, there is no reason to do it now, however this all plays out. Just know it has nothing to do with genius. It wasn't that way with Lem when he was coming from 14 back on Boston, it isn't that way now.