Mr. T

I can still see the headines of Newsday back in early 1996, "Clueless Joe". Of course this Long Island based newspaper was referring to the new manager of the New York Yankees, Joe Torre. I was young and if you were a manager and your name wasnt Buck Showalter then I didnt know who you were.
I read the newspaper as well as I could and saw that Mr. Torre has been in the Major Leagues for years, as an All-Star player back in the 60s and 70s, and also as a manager since the 80s with the Mets, Braves, and Cardinals. He was terrible with the Mets, bad with the Braves, and OK with the Cardinals, so things werent looking good for the Yankees for the next couple of years. The surprising part about everything was that despite the horrible numbers there was never anything bad that anyone could say about Mr. Torre as a person or how he treats the players.
The experiment tested by George Stienbrenner worked as Mr. Torre won 4 out of the next 5 World Series titles, winning the division every year as well. This trend seemed like it would continue into the next millennium as the Yankees made it to the World Series game 7 but lost on a bloop single in the bottom of the 9th inning. The Yankees would win the division every year until 2007, but only making it to the World Series once since '01 and that also resulted in a loss.
2007 was strange year because the Red Sox, not the Yankees, won the division and for the 3rd straight year and 4th time in 6 years the Yankees lost in the Divisional Round of the playoffs. The story of Steinbrenner firing Torre has been going on for a couple of years now because usually when a manager isnt winning the World Series theyre in trouble with the Boss whos gone through more managers than socks over the past 30 plus years. This year has been the most serious of talks because George said that if Joe didnt get out of the first round they wouldnt bring him back next season. This story is all over the news and has been since the Yankees lost earlier this week, which makes no sense to me.
If you know baseball then you know George Stienbrenner and you know how he works. He doesnt live for anything but Championships. No one knows this better than a manager that works for George either, so I cant see this being anything new to Joe, but the media is blowing this up way too much.
To me Joe Torre is the greatest manager I have ever seen and the numbers dont lie. 4 World Series, 10 Division Titles, 2 time Manager of the Year, and a record of 1173-767 (.605), by far the best record in the Major Leagues over the past 12 years. He is also a man that doesnt raise his voice, and is not only a players manager but also a father figure to the players like no one else according to his players like Derek Jeter, Andy Pettite, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera, who all grew up with Torre as their manager and dont know any other way to play the game besides Mr. Torre's way.
For anyone to say that he's done, or not a good manager is either plain ignoranat or doesnt know a thing about baseball. Joe Torre doesnt put on a glove and play the field, pick up a bat and take swings in the batters box, or take the ball and pitch it. If people are looking for others to blame for the recent failures of the Yankees you must look at the players.
If this was it and Joe Torre will never put the navy blue pinstripes on again it will be rough part of the Yankees history, but they will get through it. I just hope that Stienbrenner and the whole Yankees organization take care of this situation the same way Mr.T ran the clubhouse for the past 12 years, with some integrity and class.