The weather is nicer in Los Angeles, and yet the grass is not greener as Joe Torre has learned.
He left an untenable relationship with Yankees ownership to work for something that has become worse with the Dodgers: deadbeat owners.
The divorcing McCourts have reduced a flagship franchise into an organization that behaves like a scrounging, small-market club. The payroll has diminished to less than the Twins, and the club is among the most penurious in the draft and international market. And the coffers will be closed again come the July trade deadline since Jamie McCourt’s claims of co-ownership with Frank McCourt are not to be determined by the courts before August.
The distance from Torre’s old job to his current one was stark yesterday: The Yankees were at the White House enjoying a final victory lap for last year’s championship while Torre was at Citi Field not yet ready to identify which bottom-of-the-barrel option he was going to start tomorrow in place of the injured Vicente Padilla in what already was a rotation impaired by frugality.
You could call the Steinbrenners many things — and, in private — Torre probably has. But cheap was not one of them. The Dodgers have reached the NLCS in both of Torre’s seasons at the helm, and both times responded by slashing payroll. The Yanks failed to reach the playoffs in 2008, their first post-Torre campaign, and went on a $423.5 million shopping spree for Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett that fueled a title.
In the aftermath of that championship a sense rose again that anyone could have steered those talented, big-budget rosters to the Canyon of Heroes; a sense that Torre’s enemies in The Bronx sure did nothing to dispel. But that is nonsense, of course. All the revisionist history will not change that Torre was the right, steady, self-confident man at the right time to deflate the pressures around the Yankees.
As a vital piece of a dynasty, Torre was instrumental in getting that new Stadium built; a stadium he may never enter. For the bitterness surrounding Torre’s departure has not exactly waned and the sides have not exactly grown less stubborn.
In a 10-minute conversation with The Post, Torre acknowledged, “You always like to have a happy ending.” But, he admitted, there is no thawing on the horizon. He conceded that repairing the fractured relationship is not a front-burner issue now to him, and might never be.
Torre did phone and get through to the more and more secluded George Steinbrenner to congratulate The Boss after the World Series. But George is no longer in charge. And because of that, no one should expect the kinds of concessions that eventually brought Yogi Berra back to the Stadium after a 14-year absence. For all of his fury, George was a sentimentalist. His son, Hal, is not.
And Hal and powerful team president Randy Levine do not like Torre (the feeling is mutual, by the way). Plus, the closest thing Torre had to an organizational ally, Brian Cashman, evaporated last year when the Yankees general manager took exception to how he was portrayed in Torre’s autobiography, “The Yankee Years.” The cold war grew from the Steinbrenners taking exception to what they viewed as Torre’s greed in contract negotiations and hoarding credit. Torre felt his value was never fully appreciated by ownership.
“As far as regrets, I didn’t want bad blood,” Torre said. “I’m not comfortable with bad blood.”
But bad blood remains. Berra, who was in Torre’s office at Citi Field, was vital to bring back because he represented a great Yankees generation that was losing its representatives. The most recent dynasty, however, has plenty of younger members to carry on the tradition, making it easier to snip Torre out of the picture, as has mostly happened at the new Stadium.
It feels all wrong, though. Both sides — especially once Torre retires — need to find a way back to each other. He might work in L.A. now and retire to Hawaii, but this is Torre’s hometown and the site of his greatest accomplishments. His number should be retired, his legacy honored, his place as a forever dignitary at the Stadium assured.
The Steinbrenners should prove they are better than the McCourts in every way.