Sports

JOE ADDS FRANK AS ALL-STAR AIDE

Five years ago, Joe Torre was convinced he was going to lose his brother, which makes what he will share with Frank in a month – the last unfulfilled dream of his baseball life – even more special.

Torre has requested and received permission to have Frank serve as his honorary co-manager for the July 10 All-Star Game, The Post has learned. Torre is following the precedent set by Bobby Valentine, who already had gotten Tom Lasorda to serve as his co-manager for the game.

“It is fitting since Tommy is Bobby’s mentor and Frank is my mentor,” Joe Torre said. “Any baseball I learned, I learned from him.”

George Steinbrenner gave permission for Frank Torre to wear a Yankee uniform with the No. 14 he wore as a Milwaukee Brave. Joe Torre said his bench coach Don Zimmer already “has told me he will sit on the other side of the dugout so Frank can sit next to me.”

Both Torres consider this another piece of magic added to their lives because Frank was near death before a heart transplant in October 1996.

“This is an extremely pleasant surprise,” Frank said by phone from Florida. “In August of 1996 my doctors told me I had three months to live. Now, I not only have lived, but I have gotten to see my brother perform all these wonderful things as a manager the last five years and now I will get to be in the same uniform as him.”

Frank is 8½ years older than Joe and the two never played together when Joe was growing up in Brooklyn. Joe worked out with the Braves at times in the 1950s when his brother was the regular first baseman.

But in 1960, when Joe was promoted to Milwaukee, his brother already had been sent to the minors. They played against each other after Frank joined the Phillies.

“It’s funny when I think how many times we were so close to playing together in the same uniform and we didn’t,” Joe said. “I always wanted to do that because he has been my father, my hero, and he still is. That is why it choked me up so much when I told him about this.”

It is made more special for Frank because, unlike his brother, a nine-time All-Star, he never played in a Mid-Summer Classic. In addition, his daughter, Janet, and two grandchildren live in Seattle, site of this year’s All-Star Game.

“I’m so honored by this,” Frank said. “I’ve learned never to say never since my heart problems. Just think, we are going to be at an All-Star Game, in the same dugout, in the same uniform and the uniform is that of the Yankees, the team we grew up hating. I think you can say this is the icing on the cake for me.”

Frank acknowledged his brother is 3-0 as the AL manager and “so the pressure is really on me. I will go down in history as the monkey on his back if we lose this game now.”