Sports

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES ; TORRE HEALTHY ON CANCER ANNIVERSARY

Yankees 10 Red Sox 4

FT. MYERS — One year ago today, Joe Torre received the frightful news that he had prostate cancer. Until reminded of the anniversary yesterday, Torre admitted he hadn’t given it a thought. Successful surgery, a healthy diet and radiation treatments have fortunately returned Torre to good health.

However, sitting in the City of Palms Park yesterday morning Torre had no trouble recalling a very touching get-well card he received while recovering from surgery in St. Louis’ Barnes-Jewish Hospital last March. Later, the number of letters would grow into a small mountain but now the amount was manageable so Torre went through the stack to pass the nerve-wracking time.

“There was one that was very emotional. Someone had asked me to visit his son in the hospital when I was managing or playing for the Mets,” said Torre, who played for the Mets from 1975 to 1977 and managed them from 1977 to 1981. “He said that I went to visit his son, who at the time, they said was terminally ill and I said, ‘He was going to be fine.’ It was like I said this, that I knew something. Obviously, you try to be positive in that situation. That hit hard, especially at the time it got to me.”

Today, the card sits in a draw of a desk in Torre’s Westchester home. Yesterday, he couldn’t recall the name of the family or what the patient looked like. However, the son, who Torre said was saddled with leukemia, survived and is a college graduate today.

“Obviously, you can’t keep every kid you meet in your mind, but to have someone remember words, you don’t realize the number of people you impact,” Torre said.

Torre underwent surgery on March 18 and had radiation treatments this past offseason. He looks good and feels better.

“Is [today] the anniversary?” Torre wondered when asked if he had thought about the date. “No, only because I am busy. I am sure if I was sitting home and dwelling on that stuff, there is a lot of stuff that will make you emotional. In a way it was a quick year and a lot of pressure involved in it.”

Of course, Torre’s job is smothered by pressure. He works for George Steinbrenner who expects to win the World Series and gets a bit testy when the Yankees start the exhibition season 0-6 before beating the Red Sox, 10-4, yesterday.

Yet, Torre found out there are other pressures in the world that have nothing to do with winning or losing a baseball game.

“The toughest thing to deal with in any illness is the waiting,” Torre said. “Once I was diagnosed and I went up to start visiting doctors to make a decision on what I was going to do, which way I was going to approach it, that was another scary part. You have a broken arm, they tell you what to do with a broken arm. You have cancer and they give you several different things to do. Once I made the decision [to have surgery] that sort of alleviated a lot of anxiety.”

Torre, 59, understands what his life is and that’s baseball. Yet, cancer put a few things about his life into perspective.

“The job has been my life,” said Torre, who played professionally from 1960 to 1977 and is in his 19th season as a big league manager. “Every time I get into a situation where stress starts creeping in, you try to put it in perspective and say, ‘It’s only a game.’ But you dismiss that, too, in the seventh inning of a game that’s tight. Then you sell your soul for whatever you can get.”

Torre’s desire to win hasn’t waned since becoming a cancer patient. But he has a better understanding of what good health does for a person’s mental outlook.

“There is no question that when you wake up every morning you are going to enjoy the day instead of thinking about tomorrow and what does that hold and the day after that,” Torre said. “I don’t think any of us know that. Facing cancer, I think the approach is, and it has helped me, is that if I feel good today, I am going to enjoy the day.”