I remember the first question I ever asked Joe Torre.
“When your team is losing in the ninth inning, and there are two outs, how do you feel if you’re at the plate?”
“I feel scared,” Torre said. “Don’t you?”
Now, your first impression might be this: What an idiotic question.
And your second impression might be this: Typical Torre, answering even the dumbest and most idiotic questions with more class and more dignity than the query deserved.
On the latter point, you’re right. I saw Torre answer with a smile dozens of questions that would have caused Gandhi to go off like Lee Elia or John Tortorella. I once saw a television guy new to the postgame baseball scrum start a question of Torre this way: “J.T., I was wondering …” and Torre didn’t even flinch at the grotesque informality, using a nickname he never had been called in his life.
There was never an interview session with Torre when he was with the Yankees — in office or dugout, one-on-one or in a room overstuffed with people with credentials hanging around their necks, anywhere at all — where he wasn’t patient, smart, informative, whether he was telling old yarns about Gibby and Spahnie and Hammerin’ Hank or simply explaining why a hit-and-run wasn’t the right call in a certain situation.
And he won a hell of a lot of games, and four championships, and for all of that he will walk into Cooperstown’s front door with two contemporaries, Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox, who together won as many World Series as Torre did himself.
That question by the way?
Here’s my defense: I was 8 years old.
It was November 1975 and Torre had finished his first year as a player with the Mets, and he was doing the old rubber-chicken circuit that ballplayers used to do in the offseason, back when it still wasn’t unusual for some of them to take gigs as working men before reporting for spring training. Torre had come to the Plattdeutsche Restaurant in Franklin Square for the West Hempstead Little League banquet.
And in a fun little bit of prescience, a future sportswriter got to ask the first question. (It’s 50-50 that I honored the occasion with a mustard stain on my shirt.) A bit later, there was a raffle for an autographed ball, and guess who had the winning ticket? I strolled up to the dais, shook Torre’s hand, and he said, “Don’t think too much. Just get up there and hack.”
It was about 25 years later when I found myself in Torre’s office at Steinbrenner (then Legends) Field, talking to him about something or other, and he mentioned how one of the reasons he had become so at ease with all of his media responsibilities was that he had done hundreds of those banquets back in the day to earn walking-around money, something modern ballplayers didn’t have the need to do.
So, of course, I told him the story.
He laughed. “Great,” he said. “Just what I need to hear this morning. That I’m old enough to have been at the end of my career already when you were only 8.”
Then he said this: “Wasn’t bad advice, was it?”
No, I said. It wasn’t. In fact, every time I see a guy up with two outs in a lost cause — whether it was me in 1979 or so, or Brett Gardner last week — I still wonder if that guy is scared. And if maybe it wouldn’t behoove that guy to think a little less, get up there and just hack.
One thing I do know: When Torre gets up to speak at Cooperstown on Sunday, he won’t be scared. Just another chat to another packed room. He did that plenty, after all, back in the day.
Whack Back at Vac
Bob Buscavage: The Jets may be doing away with paper tickets for season-ticket holders, but the fact remains they will still be looked upon as paper tigers.
Vac: It ain’t easy being green, Bob.
Rocco Labbato: I’ve never seen baseball played with such sloppiness. The basics of baseball are being eliminated. One of Derek Jeter’s greatest attributes is that he executed the basics to a tee.
Vac: I’ll say this: I don’t remember a year when I’ve seen so many unwatchable baseball games, and it isn’t limited only to bad teams, either.
@aloha5006: I know the Yankees are in a bind, but I question the wisdom of starting Brian McCann at first base.
@MikeVacc: I have to be honest: There are days I question the wisdom of the Yankees selecting McCann over Francisco Cervelli.
Richard Siegelman: Sandy Alderson says the Mets will now be “buyers” rather than sellers; but that’s not surprising, since the Mets say “bye-bye” to the playoffs most seasons around this time of year.
Vac: And on that note … off to vacation. See you in a couple weeks!
Vac’s Whacks
For Adrian Beltre to look more disinterested this week while the Rangers were languishing against the Yankees, he would’ve needed to play bare-handed.
Put it this way: Once you read “Fierce Patriot,” you’ll realize that the toughest guy you know of today isn’t an eighth as tough as William Tecumseh Sherman. On his worst day.
I suspect we’re going to enjoy watching Chris Johnson’s work.
Gary Cohen asked a question, and a fair one, the other day when he wondered if any of us who were screaming about Ruben Tejada is ready to offer a mea culpa yet. Here’s another fair question: Is the GM?