Thursday, October 18, 2007

Say it ain't so, Joe!

'I'm thinking...meh...nah.'

When the Yankees didn't fire Joe Torre right after their first round loss, I knew they would try and keep him. When they hadn't made an offer by Monday, I was worried they were gonna make a crappy offer. At 4 PM today, I was pretty much inconsolable.

How could the Yankees do this? How can a team with a $200 million payroll insult their best manager in years by asking him to take a paycut because he had dared not to win a World Series? Does anyone in the Yankee brass realize how ridiculous that sounds to every other baseball fan? This is why people hate the Yankees.
"Well, Joe, ya done real good, but you only get us to the first round of the playoffs every year now...sooo basically we're gonna go ahead and lop $2.5 mil off your salary for that. Oh, but don't worry, if you win us a World Series you'll actually make more than you did this year! Yeah, it's our new incentives program...A-Rod'll be in it too. Every regular season home run is worth $1.75 mil, but come the postseason they're each worth $7 million. We really think this new program will help motivate the team. Oh, one more thing. We're only gonna give you a 1-year deal because we really want to go through this whole ordeal again next year. That's cool, right Joe? Joe? Where are you going...?"
I mean, holy crap! What kind of wacky weed were they smoking in Tampa? I can't imagine how they came up with a $5 million, 1-year deal with $3 million in elevator incentives and thought that would keep Mr. Torre in pinstripes. Please.

I guess the Yankees could come around, realize they're being very stupid and offer Torre $8 million a year for 2 years, apologize, hug and laugh it off as a joke-gone-horribly-wrong at the news conference as Mr. Torre grits his teeth and calls them sonsofbitches under his breath en route to wielding a 120-win revenge/please the fans season in 2008. But I think this may be it. The Torre era is over in the Bronx. I feel like my favorite teddy bear got destroyed in the washing machine. Something I'd leaned on for so long has come to a slightly traumatic end, and while there'll be other teddy bears, there will never be one just like this one. Even if Mr. Torre changes his mind it'd be like if the teddy bear went through surgical repair. The same and yet different, and not quite as comfy. Not that I would refuse it. But it's unlikely anyway.

Now Donnie Baseball becomes candidate No. 1 to step in as Yankees manager. I pity him. Not only does he have huge shoes to fill but he must also deal with the woulda-shoulda-couldas and 'If Joe were still managing' second guessing that the FAN, ESPN and YES network trifecta are probably already happily wringing their hands about. May as well just hire some hack for a year, let the Yankees suck wind through one season and when we're begging for someone else, then bring in Mattingly.

And if the Yankees don't make the postseason next year? Look out Yankees, look out...

No comments: