All eyes will be on Derek Jeter at his thanks-for-the-memories All-Star Game on Tuesday night, and it is the only way the man who managed his Boy of Summer to four Yankees World Series championships would want to begin his own emotional Hall of Fame Summer.
“Every time I see him play I go back and just stir up these memories — I feel like I could reach out and touch him, you know?” Torre told The Post. “He’s been so special for the game, not only to the Yankees, but for the game. In this age of ‘me, me, me,’ he still remains unique unfortunately, and I think watching the Spurs win this year sort of reminded people that it takes more than one to do something special.”
The man Jeter calls Mr. Torre, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 27 and have his No. 6 retired by the Yankees on Aug. 23, will swell with pride inside Target Field when the baseball world gives the Captain, playing shortstop and leading off for the AL, a farewell standing ovation.
“I think the respect that he’s garnered all over the place … I hear people say, ‘I’m not a Yankee fan, but you really have to admire what Jeter’s done all these years,’ ” Torre said. “That tells a lot, because baseball fans, they’re very devoted to their teams and winning and all that stuff, but it’s still an admiration for a guy who certainly deserves it. I think it’ll be pretty significant. I’m planning right now to be at both his final in-season games, anyway, home and away.”
Torre was a nine-time All Star as a player. His first All-Star Game was in 1963.
“I never got in the game,” he said. “I was the third catcher. I sat in the bullpen the whole game, watched Ed Bailey catch in Cleveland. The bullpen in Municipal Stadium was a long way away from the playing field.
“My next one [1964] was at Shea Stadium. [Don] Drysdale was the starting pitcher and I was the starting catcher, we’re going over the signs, and I said, ‘Fastball, breaking ball, changeup, what do you want to use for your spitball?’ He said, ‘I’ll just throw it off the fastball,’ and being this naive, young 23-year-old, I said, ‘OK.’ And I think four times in the first inning, I went back [to the screen] to say hello to Mayor Wagner trying to catch a fastball that was a little on the moist side.”
Torre lined a two-run, first-inning home run to left off Milt Pappas in the 1965 All-Star Game.
“That was quite a memorable time for me,” he said. “I was playing for Milwaukee, and that was our last year in Milwaukee. [The game was] in Minnesota. I wind up catching the whole game that game. … It was a hot sonofagun that day, and I wind up hitting the ball on the button every single time up. I have a piece of tape hitting that home run. It was pretty cool. I think I hit a home run in an All-Star Game before Hank Aaron did. That was my claim to fame in an All-Star Game.”
He had the privilege of catching Sandy Koufax in the 1966 All-Star Game.
“That was St. Louis. That was hot,” Torre recalled. “That was another one of those 110 degrees. That’s what Casey Stengel said. They asked him about the new ballpark. He said, ‘It holds the heat really well.’ That was before we had AstroTurf in there, too. But yeah, Koufax, that was a piece of cake, he just was so good at that point in time where you put your glove there and he’d hit it. He and [Juan] Marichal both. That was quite an experience.”
Managing the 2002 AL All-Stars to a 7-7, 11-inning tie was hardly the same experience.
“It was a great game, that was the sad part about it,” he said. “I think if people had gone to the turnstiles and had a choice of seeing a (7-7) tie game as opposed to 5-0, I think they would have picked the former.”
Watching the Captain in his 13th and final All-Star appearance will be much more gratifying for Hall of Fame Joe.