Torre Leaves New York

Yeah, I’m getting in late on this, but the Yankees are pretty low on my radar. It’s not like there’s a shortage of people in the world who are willing to tell you what happened and give you their opinion on it.

That said, long-time Yankees manager Joe Torre has stepped down. He was presented with a pay cut and refused.

I’m just looking over Torre’s record, and it’s stunning how good he’s been. With the resources at his disposal, you’d expect no less, but 10 AL East titles and 2 wild card appearances in 12 years is impressive. New York captured four World Series titles under Torre.

The Yankees won 90 or more games in all but one season (87 in 2000, when they won it all). They notched 100 or more victories four times.

This gets the guy a pay cut? Tough crowd, tough crowd.

It’ll be interesting to see what George Steinbrenner and company do next. My suspicion is that they will come to regret their decision. Don’t get me wrong, the Yankees will continue to compete because, like their rivals in Boston, they can afford nothing less.

But Torre brought the club in Bronx to levels of dominance it hadn’t seen since the Casey Stengel/Ralph Houk/Yogi Berra era (1949-1964). Torre represents a significant thread in the fabric of the Yankees’ storied history, and he will be more difficult to replace than I suspect Steinbrenner wants to believe.