joe torre "the yankee years" book review

when the first leaks about the contents of joe torre's "the yankee years" dribbled out in late january, i was dubious. would joe torre, "mr. trust" personified, crank out a "kiss and tell" book in the wake of his less than flattering departure as yankee manager in 2007? from the snippets that circulated, it seemed so. now, after i finished the book, all i can say is "oh how the mighty have fallen."

first, there is no doubt in my mind that this book would never have been written, much less actually published, if joe torre was still the manager of the ny yankees today. it may have been planned as a retirement project, but as an active manager - impossible. second, "written in the third" person seems like a lame canard to distract attention from torre's responsibility for the contents. while the book does rely on tom verducci's excellent reporting skills for the league-wide steroid use coverage, the bulk of the material is entirely within torre's purview. what, if any, is outside his personal knowledge could easily have been attributed as such.

while i have no problem with torre writing this book (any book for that matter), it troubles me that as an active manager he so flippantly ignores any notions of "trust" and it's connection to the player conversations and behaviors he witnessed first hand. amazingly, and utterly ironic in this context, the most overworked (and abused) word in the entire book is "trust." it's used so frequently that, at first, it's humorous then, finally, by the last chapter it became nauseating. imagine yourself a current member of the dodgers today - how would you go about your business this season (or any season) with torre as manager?

as a die hard yankee fan since the early 1970's - i found the relatively brief coverage of the rise of torres' late 90's yankees given far less attention than the post-01 years of inglorious decline. the short recap of the great years is quickly forgotten after pages, blow by blow, that described how the wheels fell off the yankee bus. the most painful part of the entire book (again, purely as a yankee fan) was reliving the agony of the yankee immolation in 2004 - losing the alcs to the red sox, after a 3-0 start, in 4 straight horrifying games!

settling old scores with difficult players and the yankee organization is predictable. the a-rod business in particular is old news to any new yorker mildly tuned in to yankee headlines. but the "a-fraud" crack, carefully scripted so as not to be uttered by torre in the retelling, is new grist for stadium fans. any guess what may be heard at the stadium from rowdy fans when a-rod is having a bad game? coincident? but that's hardly worth noting. what galled me in particular was the gratuitous cheap shot taken at bernie williams!

for a loyal yankee and torre solider his entire time on the team, joe somehow found it necessary to relate how bernie once forgot his kids at the stadium. embarrassing? how about a second go of it? bernie also forgot his wife at the stadium once! what on earth do either of those anecdotes (and whatever absentminded implication they imply) have to do with the yankee - or baseball in general?

to say this book is disappointing is the best praise i can muster up. the sole highlight was the discussion of "moneyball" - the rise of statistics and numbers crunchers. the low point (aside from the comments on bernie williams), was reading how joe felt "betrayed" by the yankees. interestingly, the actual word "betrayed" was never written. coy? cagey? skillful prose? diplomacy? "trust" was employed so frequently that its use in this context was almost offensive.

did torre think the buck for the long string of poor post-season performances would not stop with him? fairly or unfairly? whining about getting the ax those circumstances (however artfully framed) was just lame. and torre wasn't actually fired! he was, in fact, offered a one year contract (albeit with a pay cut). while the terms may have embarrassed him, the yankees nevertheless gave torre the option to manage the team for another season! he elected to walk away - right or wrong?!

yankee fans, joe comes not to praise caesar - but to bury him. so be forewarned. sadly, this is a more a book for red sox fans and erstwhile yankee haters. instead, a much happier read was last year's "the greatest game" which focused on the now historic (in yankee lore) 1978 playoff game against the red sox.

or check-out the baseball book i'm anxiously awaiting, the new thurman munson biography due out this summer.

joe torre burns his bridges in "the yankee years" kiss and tell

wow, i had planned to finish up and post my manhattan half marathon race report this morning, but on the train ride to work joe torre's forthcoming book, "the yankee years," was the big news (imo) on the sports pages! if reports of its snarky contents are even close to accurate, "my how the mighty have fallen" should be the book's subtitle. the book is scheduled to be released next week, february 3, but the ny post somehow, and rather conveniently, managed to purchase an advance copy from a nyc bookseller - really?!

what on earth motivated torre to write this book? given he was one of the highest paid managers in baseball during his years with the yankees - hardly the money. to document his hardscrabble life as the yankee skipper for 12 years - isn't there time for that when he retires? or, more likely reason, to settle old scores and grudges against his enemies. his co-author, tom verducci, a writer with "sports illustrated," has already come to his defense, pointing out the book was written in the third person?! what a lame grammatical attempt at a fig leaf.

from this book we learn these tidbits: that a-rod was a prima donna with the nickname a-fraud; that joe thought gm cashman had his back in the final contract negotiations but, instead, was stabbed in that back by cashman; and, even more stunning, in 1999, torre learned of his own prostate cancer not from the doctors - but from george steinbrenner. if his stories comes off as this vindictive and petty in the actual book then joe torre is nothing more than a bitter old man taking cheap shots at his past enemies.

even if everything single thing he relates is true, and he's actually sugarcoating it to protect the truly bad, how can a working manager play this sort of gotcha memoir game? working manager is key here. what will his l.a. dodger players say in the locker room. christ, how will they act around torre knowing that he might publish anything they say or do that may offend him? how will it impact the team play? the context of what he's saying is irrelevant. it's that he's decided to spill it all now that calls his judgement into question.

aside from his current team, what about us poor old yankee fans? i for one rallied to his defense when the yankee organization dismissed him with absolutely no class, no honor, whatsoever. i thought it was beautiful karma that the dodgers made the playoffs with joe - and the yankees failed to get there without him! i am no fan of a-rod, cashman, or the yankee management, but now i feel like a chump for having defended torre. torre may be repaying the people who treated him poorly, but his reputation has forever been tarnished by taking this very low road. and i bet there are a few more yankee fans who feel the way i do.

so, with that vented and out of my system, i'll leave poor old joe with these rhetorical questions: how many copies of the book do you need to sell to rehabilitate your image? and, was it all worth it? while i won't buy this book, i'll eventually borrow a copy from the library and read it. but more importantly, i just can't wait to hear what joe himself has to say about all this when he embarks on the promo tour for the book.
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update: i've softened on the prospect of buying a copy of the book. joe torre will be at barnes and noble next week to kick off the book promotion tour (and include a visit to the dave letterman show as well). so i may just use up my last b&n gift certificate and get up a copy.

read excerpts from the book at the "sports illustrated" site.

check out this great ny times coverage on the third person narrative technique: "yankee book is a two-person effort, written in the third person."

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update: torre, finally commenting on the news coverage : "cashman didn't betray me."

update: i skipped the book signing at barnes and noble, ordering it from amazon instead. just started to read it (february 10).