[I don't know if I'm necessarily in favor of firing Mr. Torre...I have the utmost respect for him as a manager and a man. However, Mr. Lupica does present an impressive case for pulling the trigger. - jtf]
October 8, 2006
The New York Daily News
DETROIT - This is just as bad for the Yankees, losing these last three to the Tigers this way, not even competing in the last two, as losing four in a row to the Red Sox two years ago. These Yankees have now become the biggest postseason flops in the history of the team, maybe any team. This year George Steinbrenner went for a payroll of $213 million and gave Brian Cashman and Joe Torre the run of the place. Here is what that kind of money and that kind of restraint bought Steinbrenner: the most expensive glass jaw of all time, a team that gets knocked out cold in the first round again.
It is why the owner, 76 years old now, desperate to win at least one more World Series, has a perfect right to try it with some new people next season, starting with a new manager. They can't only be Torre's Yankees when they win.
This is now three times in five years, with a payroll three times the size of most playoff teams, that Joe Torre can't make it to the second round. Tell me another manager, no matter how well-respected, no matter how classy, who survives that? Steinbrenner can go hire Lou Piniella tomorrow if he wants to.
And George Steinbrenner ought to do everything he can to try and move Alex Rodriguez, who came here three seasons ago for easy World Series rings and hasn't even played a World Series. He was 2-for-15 against the Angels last season. He was 1-for-14 against the Tigers this time. If somebody will take him and give the Yankees young arms like the Tigers have in return, he goes. You know why Torre batted him eighth yesterday? Because he wasn't allowed to bat him 10th.
When Brian Cashman, the Yankee general manager, was asked yesterday if Torre and A-Rod will be back, outside a Yankee clubhouse as quiet as Yankee Stadium will be today and all through the baseball winter, quiet as an empty locker, he said, "Why wouldn't they?"
Cashman has a lot of power now. He won't make the call on who will manage the Yankees next season. The owner will. If the owner has seen enough since the Yankees beat the Mets to win the 2000 Series, no one can fault him. It has been a long time, more than a decade, since he fired a manager. If he isn't allowed to do it now, then when?
Oh, you bet he has the right to make a change. He has paid through the nose for that right.
Torre has been the best and classiest manager the Yankees have ever had. He has four World Series rings and is going to the Hall of Fame. He has also had more money spent on him, been given more Hall of Fame players and All-Stars, than any manager ever. When he does make it out of the first round now, his team loses four straight to the Red Sox after leading 3-0. Three years ago, his Yankees couldn't beat the Marlins, a team with a payroll of $50 million - tipping money at Yankee Stadium - in the World Series.
For a long time, Torre has been given everything and produced nothing in October, where Yankee managers are measured the same as players like A-Rod are.
"I think I'm part of the solution here," Rodriguez said in the visitors' clubhouse as Randy Johnson walked past him, pulling his carry-on bag. Two years now for Johnson with the Yankees. No postseason victories. They paid $57 million to get Johnson. They picked up A-Rod's contract even if they didn't have to pick up all of it. How has that worked out for everybody so far?
A-Rod thinks he's part of the solution? He's the only one in town right now. A Met town.
It was not just A-Rod. It was all of the Steinbrenner's All-Stars, the Greatest (Regular Season) Show on Earth. Mike Mussina, who thinks he merits another huge contract, could not hold the 3-1 lead in Game 2 the way he could not hold a big lead against the Angels four years ago, in another first-round collapse. From there, the Yankees were outscored 17-1 by the Detroit Tigers before Jorge Posada, who is a truly great Yankee still, hit a meaningless 2-run homer with two out in the 9th yesterday.
The final - so final - was 8-3 for the Tigers. It was 10-3 for the Red Sox in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series of '04. For all these years, when the Yankees go down in the postseason, go down hard, they stay down. It happened yesterday in Comerica Park. Three years running now, this is the most expensive flop in baseball history and sports history. Maybe this is the time to try it without All-Stars at every position on the field.
"For the first time under Joe," one Yankee said yesterday, "I felt like we didn't compete [in Game 3]."
You can talk about the way the Tigers pitched and talk about the way they jumped on the Yankees in both of the last two games. The Yankees, praised far and wide for their patience, finally looked like a bunch of scared, lunging minor-leaguers. If some of this doesn't land at the desk of the manager, when does it?
"I still think we're the best team," Johnny Damon said. "Sometimes the best team doesn't win."
You can say the Red Sox loss in '04 was worse, because the Yankees lost four straight, because no baseball team had ever done that, because it was the Red Sox. This one was just as bad.
Tiger relief pitchers ruined them, Kenny Rogers ruined them, Jeremy Bonderman looked like he might no-hit them yesterday. The best batting order since the '27 Yankees had nothing. They were supposed to make history. Instead they turn New York over to the Mets, and maybe get their manager fired. They can't only be Torre's Yankees when they win.
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