Derek Jeter released a statement this afternoon:

“Out of my great respect for Mr. Torre*, I have refrained from comment until he had a chance to address the public.

“In my eyes, Joe Torre is more than a Hall of Fame manager. He is a friend for life, and the relationship we have shared has helped shape me in ways that transcend the game of baseball. His class, dignity, and the way he respected those around him – from ballplayers to batboys – are all qualities that are easy to admire, but difficult to duplicate.”

This is classic Jeter. Scripted, predictably bland, but not phony. You get the sense that Jeter really does knows how fortunate he’s been, and you know the bond between him and “Mr T” is genuine. Here’s the beauty part, which gets to the heart of the matter:

“I have known Mr. Torre for a good majority of my adult life, and there has been no bigger influence on my professional development. It was a privilege to play for him on the field, and an honor to learn from him off the field.”

I think that’s the truth right there. Jeter, Posada–their baseball father is gone now. I often wonder how Jeter’s career will play itself out. I could see him aging poorly, like Cal Ripken in his later years. I hope I’m wrong. Regardless, it will be fascinating to see how he goes about getting along with a new manager next spring. Not that it will necessarily change his game much (and it’ll be easy for him if it’s Mattingly of Girardi who takes over), just that it will be so new, so different.

Aren’t you curious?

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"All things end badly, or else they wouldn’t end."
— Bryan Brown, as Coghlan in "Cocktail"

I apologize for the Bill Simmons-like "Cocktail" reference to open this column, but I thought it appropriate, given what’s gone on here in New York over the past week. The last five days have been borderline apocalyptic for many Yankee fans, between the end of Joe Torre’s managerial tenure and the Red Sox coming back from 3-1 down to advance to the World Series. I was tempted to post on Saturday, following Friday’s media frenzy regarding the Torre news, but decided to be patient to gauge whether the tone would change once the analysts had time to move past their knee-jerk reactions.

The newsrooms had to be jumping Thursday afternoon and evening. I was involved in that atmosphere, and I’m continually amazed at how quickly the outlets can pump out information on so tight a deadline. Each local paper had a unique take on the scope of the event. They got into the meat-and-potatoes of the Tampa summit; put 12 years of success — or perceived success, depending on your perspective — into historical context; played the “who’s right, who’s wrong?” card; went into the public relations mess that the Yankees find themselves in based on how Randy Levine and Hank and Hal Steinbrenner handled the conference call; and more than anything, played up the cause-and-effect of Torre’s departure on players like Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez.

The media excelled in presenting Torre’s exit as a case of history repeating itself. Torre noted this in his own press conference — how the Yankees were seen as bullies and not demonstrating the greatest people skills, going back to their dynastic years of the 1940s and 50s. Newsday, as part of its 16-page special section, made the apt comparisons of Torre’s exit to those of Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel, while the Times’ Richard Sandomir one-upped Joe Gergen, noting that Torre’s ouster occurred 47 years to the day of Stengel’s.

I enjoyed reading the contrarian viewpoints presented by the Times’ Murray Chass, whose Friday column gave the impression that he sided with the Yankees and Steinbrenner. On a second read, I can see where he makes sense, especially on the premise that Steve Swindal’s exit left Torre vulnerable. Chass said that if a player can hit .220 and get a raise, then by that standard, Torre should have also, but Torre did not live up to his boss’s expectations. Did that merit a raise? By that logic, no. The Yankees, first and foremost, are a business, and the contract was presented in a corporate, business-like manner. Michael Kay also played the pro-Yankees card on his 1050 ESPN Radio show, adding that Torre being gone will not affect the moves made by the Yankees’ top-tier free agents.

I’m not going to get into the press conference, because Cliff Corcoran did an admirable job breaking down the inferences in this space Friday. Like many of you, I was riveted. I’m also thankful that the Yankees allowed YES to carry it live. Given what was presented as an acrimonious departure, I was curious to see how the Torre presser would be played.

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Joe Girardi interviewed for the managerial job yesterday with the Yankee brass down in Tampa (Pete Abraham has audio from Girardi). Hank Steinbrenner and his brother, Hal, are suddenly in the spotlight. Donnie Baseball is up next; Tony Pena follows tomorrow.

Here are updates on Mo, Jorgie and Alex.

Meanwhile, Randy Levine does not think he has been treated objectively by the media in the past week. Richard Sandomir has more in the Times.

According to Jon Heyman at SI.com:

The Yankees are moving fast to try to lock up both Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera to new contracts, but the early word is that more progress is being made in Posada’s case.

Baseball people see the Yankees offering bookend $40 million, three-year deals for each longtime star. Such offers would make them the highest-paid players at their respective positions…

…The idea that Posada and Rivera would leave the Yankees because Torre is gone is downright laughable…

…People close to the situation would be shocked if Posada went anywhere else. The Mets are in the market for a catcher, but even a Mets person said, “You honestly think the Yankees are letting him come here?’

In a word, no.

Okay, here’s my question. Which one of these guys will be wearing pinstripes come 2008: Mariano, Jorgie, Andy Pettitte, Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez?

Bigger, Better, Bullies

As much as I hate to say this, I will. Congrats to the Red Sox for winning the pennant. Tough team, man. Couple of the greatest hitters in the game, the best money pitcher going, an outstanding closer, and more. They deserve to be the AL champs.

Most of all, congrats to all of the cool Sox fans out there (and this means you, Josh). After Josh Beckett dominated the Indians in Game 5 did anyone think the Sox were going to lose? I pinned all of my hopes on Fausto Carmona, and when he got spanked on Saturday night, I knew it was over.

Before Game 6, I got an IM from an old Sox friend of mine who boasted, “We’re winning this thing.” He was dead-serious too. My, how times have changed. In the post ’04-World, anything is possible in New England. The Sox have been a very good team for years now, the Patriots practically own the NFL, even the Celtics have a promising season ahead with the additions of KG and Ray Allen. Yup, a new world.

Disgusting, isn’t it? (Especially in New York, where Red Sox gear has infiltrated every yuppie neighborhood in the five boroughs.) So while the Sox–and their fans–become more and more like the Yankees and their fans (elitest, entitled, overbearing, obnoxious, hated throughout the rest of the country), we can do nuthin but watch (Hey, maybe Season 4 of The Office will start getting good any week now…). A bitter pill, indeed. After the last couple of games, I might not have the stomach to look at the World Serious. Not to see the Sox roll over the Rocks, no thank you.

But there will also be enough continuing drama in Yankeeland to keep our minds of things, that’s for sure. Time to commiserate. Whatta ya got?

For those who are on-line, I’m going to be on Yankee Fanclub Radio at around 6:20 this evening. Give a listen or watch their live videocast below:

Listen to the archived show here. I come in at the 21:00 mark.

“I would say that state of flux is a grand issue. I’m not saying that information and time can not resolve it. But it’s going to take time for us to know how these things are resolved. We’re talking about a long-term contract here, and to make that decision is difficult, knowing there are that many issues up in the air.” –Scott Boras

Alex Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, is good at his job, and he’s seized upon the turmoil of the last few days to apply pressure to the Yankees not only to drive a dump truck full of money to Alex Rodriguez’s front door, but to hire a manager, convince Andy Pettitte to come back, and send trucks of money to Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada’s houses as well. Sez Boras, “Without Pettitte, Rivera and Posada, it’s not the same team.”

Rivera and Posada seem determined to test free agency, but Rodriguez’s deadline to opt out of his contract will arrive six days before free agents are allowed to sign with other teams (see sidebar), so something will have to give. That said, it seems a given that the Yankees will name a new skipper and pick up Bobby Abreu’s $16-million option comfortably in advance of Rodriguez’s opt-out date (for those doubting the Abreu move, Bobby hit .309/.396/.520 over the final four months of the season).

Meanwhile, Joe Torre has turned down an offer from FOX to join Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in the broadcast booth for this year’s World Series citing family commitments. I assume those are commitments he made after the Yankees were eliminated from the postseason.

The Record‘s Ian O’Connor, the reporter who obtained the now infamous George Steinbrenner interview during the ALDS defends himself in his column today:

Other writers in the market are closer to Steinbrenner than I am, and have a better understanding of how the organization functions than I do. But I got lucky. For one night, anyway, Jeffrey Maier reached over my outfield wall.

Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, the popular and powerful “Mike & the Mad Dog” hosts, couldn’t accept simple serendipity as a plausible explanation for the “get.” They went off to the races with a complete fabrication planted by someone positioning me as [Randy] Levine’s double-play partner in an attempt to take down Joe.

Never mind these annoying little facts: I have absolutely no relationship with Levine. I have ripped Levine for advocating Torre’s ouster. And I have repeatedly written that Torre should be/should’ve been retained.

On deck, the comical rumor — spread by another Yankee doodle dummy — that I did a Frank Caliendo-esque imitation of Reggie Jackson to get through to The Boss.

Francesa and Russo just had a bad source; I’ve had my share. Sometimes sources have hidden agendas. Sometimes they’re just plain wrong.

I’m willing to take O’Connor at his word, but just because it appeared to be serendipity to him doesn’t mean that there wasn’t someone behind the scenes pulling the strings. Mike Vaccaro extends that man-behind-the-curtain metaphor in unofficially annointing Levine the new Boss (same as the old Boss), while Bob Klapish anticipates a Yogi-Berra-like freeze-out of the Yankees by the spurned Torre.

Over at the paper of record, the graphic accompanying this Murray Chass article shows that Torre made more than the next two highest paid managers in baseball in 2007, and Tyler Kepner reminds us that Torre was willing to except a one-year extension back in spring training, but the since-ousted Steve Swindal told him to wait until after the season (and, by the way, said a pay cut would be mandatory). Of course, a one-year extension in spring training would have meant Torre was, in essence, working on a two-year contract, so his stance was actually consistent there, though it does bear a striking similarity to Gary Sheffield’s inability to play in the final year of a contract without insisting on an extension.

Kepner also quotes Brian Cashman as saying that he wasn’t the only one who wanted Torre back:

“Everybody in that room wanted him back; I have to disagree with him there,” Cashman said Friday night. “Joe knows I’m an ally because there’s a bond there. But I’ve got to speak for everybody else in the room, and they did want him back, too.”

As Steinbrenner cedes control to his sons, he is more intent on seeking consensus for major moves. Levine said all of the executives wanted Torre back.

“Every single one of us made that offer with the hope that he would return,” Levine said. “We were all disappointed that he did not accept it. Reasonable people can differ.”

Maybe they did want him back (I still have very strong doubts about Levine), but only on their terms. To me the most telling part of the entire affair is the team’s unwillingness to negotiate with Torre. That his meeting with them lasted only about 20 minutes is, to me, the most damning fact of all.

Finally, Cashman has confirmed that he has reached out to Don Mattingly, Joe Girardi, and Tony Peña in his search for Torre’s replacement. Peter Abraham spoke to Cashman directly:

Cashman said the process could be culminated swiftly. But he also warned that it could take until after the World Series. “I’ll expand the pool of candidates if that is what I need to do,” he said.

At the same time, he said, he will be negotiating with the in-house free agents. He does not yet know whether the departure of Joe Torre will make that more difficult.

“Nobody has told me that,” he said. “We’ll find that out.”

Joe Torre held a press conference at the Rye Town Hilton in Rye Brook, New York at 2pm today. At 4:30 he spoke by phone with Mike and the Mad-Dog on WFAN. From those two appearances as well as the Yankees’ official conference call on Thursday, I’ve been able to piece together the following sequence of events leading to Joe Torre’s departure from the team.

In both of his appearances, Torre stressed a need for trust and commitment from the organization and said on WFAN that he felt that trust and commitment begin to disappear following the Yankees’ 2004 ALCS loss to the Red Sox, saying, “from that time on, it started going downhill.”

Confirming the tone of his press conference after Game 4 of this year’s ALDS and the reports of the mood in the clubhouse that night, Torre said that he did indeed assumed that night that he had managed his final game for the Yankees. However, the lack of news from the team in the week that followed led him to believe there was a chance he could keep his job.

General Manager Brian Cashman contacted Torre a few days before the actual offer was made and told him there would indeed be an offer forthcoming, but that it would involve a pay cut.

On Wednesday evening, Cashman told Torre by phone what the actual offer was: one year, $5 million, with million-dollar incentives for making the postseason, the ALCS, and the World Series for a maximum total of $8 million.

Torre traveled to Tampa with Cashman the next morning with the intention of negotiating with the team (though Cashman did tell him that, in Torre’s words, “he felt that this offer was it, that there was no wiggle room in it”), or at the very least coming to a face-to-face understanding with the organization. Torre’s main goal was to get the team to look beyond this year’s playoff loss to his twelve-year record of success. Among the arguments he was determined to make were that none of the last five World Series Champions made the postseason the year after winning the title, something the Yankees did all four times they won the World Series under Torre, and that the Yankees were the only team to make the postseason in both 2006 and 2007.

In Tampa, where it is assumed he met with the same group who took part in the conference call (Cashman, team president Randy Levine, COO Lonn Trost, George Steinbrenner–who was not on the conference call–his sons Hank and Hal, and his son-in-law Felix Lopez), it was immediately made clear to him that the offer was indeed non-negotiable, at which point Torre officially declined it. Torre said that his arguments were “dismissed real quickly. At that point I realized that it was the offer or nothing, so at that point is when I said goodbye. . . . There really was no negotiation involved. I was hoping there would be, but there wasn’t.” The meeting lasted about 20 minutes, according to Torre.

Torre wanted a two-year deal that would have shown a commitment to keeping him as a manager rather than what he saw as a lame duck. “It’s not totally money. It’s commitment, and commitment is a two-way street. . . . I think players put undo pressure on themselves when they think they have to save the manager’s job. That’s the type of pressure I’ve tried to take out of the clubhouse. . . . Two years would have opened the door for further discussion, but it just never happened.”

He also “took exception” to the incentive clauses, which he “took as an insult,” and the suggestion that they were required as “motivation,” said he “resented” that he would have to accomplish certain things to get back the money taken away from his base salary, saw it as “a punishment.” “If someone is reducing your salary, it tells you they’re not satisfied with the job you’re doing. . . . I didn’t need to be reminded that getting to the World Series is what this organization is all [about]. And that this may make you try harder . . . that insulted me, there’s no question. . . . It was a generous offer, but it still wasn’t the type of commitment of trying to do something together instead of, ‘Let’s see what you can do for me.'”

It was widely assumed on Thursday that the Yankees’ offer was designed precisely so that Torre would reject it, allowing the organization to save face by framing Torre’s departure as his own decision. Most saw through that immediately, as did Torre, who would have preferred that the team told him flatly and immediately that they didn’t want him back. “I think that would have been a lot more honest,” he said on WFAN. Torre said he began Thursday’s meeting by asking if the team really wanted him back. They said yes, but he clearly didn’t believe them. “If someone wanted me to be managing here, I’d be managing here.”

Torre said he did believe that Brian Cashman wanted him back, but was unsure if anyone else did. He said he had a mutual respect with George Steinbrenner, but never had any direct dealings with Randy Levine.

One of the more telling moments in Torre’s press conference was when he indicated that he believed that George Steinbrenner’s statement during the ALDS and the fact that The Record‘s Ian O’Connor was able to reach him by phone was orchestrated by the organization. Francesa and Russo pointed their fingers squarely at team president Randy Levine as the man who orchestrated the Steinbrenner statement. Francesa, an unapologetic Yankee fan, was particularly virulent, painting Levine as an interloper from the business side of the organization who is attempting to thrust himself into the power vacuum in the Yankees’ front office. It was Levine who announced the offer and Torre’s decision in the conference call yesterday, and it is believed that it was Levine who led the movement to get rid of Torre. Francesa called for Levine to be fired, saying that Levine, who joined the team in 2000 after Torre had already won three World Series and was on his way to a fourth, is exploiting his role in the plans for the new stadium to insert himself into the baseball side of the organization despite a lack of knowledge about the game.

Finally, though Torre handled the himself with his usual class, dignity, honesty, emotional openness, and humor today, it’s telling that he refused to say that he’d be willing to come back for any ceremonial purposes. Pressed on that point by Francesa and Russo he said, “all of a sudden you just have the feeling that they don’t want you around, and the way it was done, it’s going to take some time.”

And so the Joe Torre era is over. There are two immediate responses to this. The first is to honor Torre and his twelve years as the Yankee skipper, the third most successful managerial term in Yankee history:

McCarthy, Stengel, and Huggins all made the Hall of Fame based on their success in pinstripes. Joe Torre, whose number 6 will join Stengel’s 37 in whatever version of Monument Park exists in the new Yankee Stadium, will join them in Cooperstown largely because of the last twelve years.

The second response is to ask what effect Torre’s departure will have on the 2008 New York Yankees. That’s a much more difficult question to answer, in part because it depends on both whom the Yankees chose to replace Torre as manager, and on how that choice impacts the contract decisions made by Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Alex Rodriguez. Only those four men know the answer to the latter. As for whom the Yankees might hire to replace Torre, here’s a look at a some likely (and far less likely) candidates.

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The Joe Torre Era appears to be finally over. Unless the Yankees or Torre have a sudden about-face, which seems unlikely, it’s done. “And that’s that,” as Martin Scorsese’s father said in Good Fellas over Joe Pesci’s fallen, and bleeding body.

Torre became an icon as manger of the Yankees, a native son who was one of the most popular and famous coaches New York has ever seen. He was far and away the most successful manager under George Steinbrenner. And he managed more than twice as many games as anyone under the Boss. Torre made the playoffs in each of his twelve years in New York. But the Yankees have not won the World Series since 2000 and Torre makes more than twice as much as any other manager in the game. Today, the Yankees made Torre an offer he could refuse. It was not an outrageously insulting offer, but it is one they could reasonably expect him to turn down.

Torre did and now is out, but on his own terms. “He finally showed some balls,” barked a friend of mine. I didn’t think Torre would ever walk away from the Yankees, but I like him more for it. And he still comes out smelling like a Rose. To be honest, I agree with Joe Morgan and several other talking heads I’ve heard tonight in seeing both sides of the equation. I understand why Torre turned them down. After all of his success you’d think he’d get more than a one-year deal. But I also understand that the Yankees would still be paying more well more than any other manager is earning. It’s not bad business on their part.

I don’t know if the Yankees have any idea of what they are doing (Also, I find Randy Levine to be crude without having any of Steinbrenner’s charm). It’s funny, but even hardcore Yankee fans are skeptical about the idea of Don Mattingly as manager. Some are terrified. Which is about how I feel too, even though I loved Mattingly as a player. But I thought Torre was a bum when they hired him too, so one never knows…

I’d still expect to see Posada and Rivera back, even without Torre. Who knows with Alex Rodriguez and I’m not so certain about Pettitte either. I’m okay with the Yankees moving on. It makes things exciting. But it also feels uneasy. So much change: the loss of Bernie and now Torre, the decline of Steinbrenner. Who knows what the roster will look like on Opening Day?

I will also miss Torre very much. I grew accustomed to his face, as the song goes. I love watching him on TV–he gives great press conference–and am a flat-sucker for the Poppa Joe routine. I was 25 and had just moved to Brooklyn when he was hired. Torre looked like an undertaker or the butcher from the neighborhood. His time with the Yankees will always stand out as a way to look at a certain time of my life–from being single and working in the film business, to being married and writing about baseball. In fact, it was the great Yankee run of the late nineties that compelled me to start writing about baseball in the first place.

Torre has been a wonderful manager and I’ve never been especially bugged about his shortcomings, though I recognize he’s got plenty. I’ll especially love the days with Don Zimmer, not only because the Yankees were winning all the time, just because those two were so amusing. Torre sure loved being Yankee manager and without the pinstripes he may be a little bit like Superman without the cape and suit. But I’m sure he’ll land back in the broadcast booth–if he doesn’t go and manage the Dodgers or something like that–and still be appealing.

Thanks for the memories, Joe. You done good.

The Yankees offered Joe Torre a one-year contract for $5 million. With that, Torre would make an extra million bucks for each round of the playoffs they Yankees won next year. Finally, there was a team option for 2009.

Joe turned them down.

Whatta ya hear, whatta ya say it ain’t so Joe!

Annual organizational changes are part of the Yankees’ credo. For the Yankees, the “brain trust” meetings in Tampa are usually a harbinger of what’s to come in the winter. At this point, with nothing happening and the team not tipping its hand, reporters had nothing to report except that there was nothing to report. Sadly, that’s still a story.

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“Man, I’m just happy to do something special like that. I’m not trying to show up anybody out there. I’m just trying to go have fun. If somebody strike me out and show me up, that’s part of the game, I love it. I like that. I like to compete, and when people strike me out and show me up, it’s all good. It’s not a hard feeling. I ain’t trying to go out there and show anybody up.”

Manny Ramirez

Reggie Jackson spoke to a group of reporters in the Yankee dugout last week before Game 4 of the ALDS. Initially, he talked about Alex Rodriguez, but soon, he was talking about himself. He recalled how he used his large ego to help him succeed in the playoffs. He talked about how tough Fausto Carmona’s sinker was against the Yankees in Game 2, and then about how daunting it was facing Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and John Matlack in the 1973 World Series.

Eventually, someone brought up Manny Ramirez, and Jackson smiled. “Did you see that?” said Jackson referring to Ramirez’s game-winning home run in Game 2 of the Red Sox series against the Angels. Jackson mimicked Manny’s celebration at home plate and cracked everybody up.

Clearly, Reggie admires Manny. He likes the chutzpah, he likes Manny’s flakiness. (“How can you be offended by Manny?” he suggested.) Mostly, he likes the fact that nothing fazes Manny and that Manny hits bombs. How much better can it get?

Ramirez, who has been ridiculously locked-in at the plate this October, pulled his usual home run schtick the other night even though the Red Sox were losing 7-3. Mike Lowell wasn’t sold on the routine, but most of the Indians didn’t seem to mind. Nobody really cares because it’s just part of Ramirez’s make-up, because showboating is an accepted part of the game, and because, like Reggie, most players simply admire Ramiez’s talent.

Yesterday, Manny told reporters:

“We’re not going to give up,” he said. “We’re just going to go, play the game and move on. If it doesn’t happen, so who cares? It’s always next year. It’s not like the end of the world.”

Now, how do you bother somebody with that kind of attitude? Perhaps you can’t.

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Yankee fans of my generation grew up knowing nothing else but the world of George Steinbrenner. Now that the Boss has receded into the background, it has become harder to predict what will happen and when with these Yankees. The Tampa Summit ended yesterday with no official word on Joe Torre. GM Brian Cashman reiterated the team’s stance on Alex Rodriguez; otherwise, bubkus.

All we can do is guess as to what’s gunna happen. The Daily News speculates:

It has become clear that three scenarios are being considered: Bring Torre back on a two- or three-year deal; bring him back on a one-year deal for considerably less than what he earned last year; or let him go and move forward, likely with Don Mattingly taking over as manager. Neither Mattingly nor any other candidate besides the incumbent was discussed yesterday.

“The decision that we’re talking about is obviously rehiring somebody,” Cashman said. “There’s a negotiation if you do so. Those are the decisions we have to come to if that’s the direction we choose to go….We’re having the dialogue with all the relevant parties.”

Pete Abraham thinks the Yankees have become boring while Mike Vaccaro speaks to a baseball executive who thinks the Yankee situation is more interesting than what’s going on in the playoffs.

I like Joel Sherman’s take.

Leave it to the Yankees to hold a suedo-secluded-super-serious meeting of their top officials, and have them come up with a big, fat “no comment” after Day One. Joe Torre’s future with the team is still very much in doubt. According to the Post:

How tough is it to fire somebody?” [former Yankee coach, and current enemy of George Steinbrenner, Don] Zimmer asked. “If you want to fire somebody, you can do it the right way. But to let somebody hang is wrong.”

Joe’s older brother, Frank, isn’t thrilled about how things are playing out, but for now, he’s curbed that famous temper of his.

Although I like Torre, I understand why the Yankees would want to move on. That said, I agree with Zimmer. There is a right way and a wrong way to handle these things. Unfortunately, in baseball, they are generally handled the wrong way.

Pete Abraham hit the nail on the head yesterday when he wrote:

It’s always amusing to me when team executives act like they’re determining the course of the free world.

That was the case in Tampa today as the Yankees played cloak-and-dagger with the media and then refused comment as to what happened. There were literally black cars with grim-faced men behind the wheel zooming past reporters.

We’re talking about who is going to manage a baseball team next season. I understand this is big business. But it’s baseball, not life and death. If the Joint Chiefs of Staff want to keep their feelings private, that’s OK. Not the people who run a baseball team.

…If they were going to get rid of Joe Torre, wouldn’t they have done that by now? If they let Torre go [today], it amounts to unprofessional behavior on their part. Why would you treat one of your best, most loyal employees that way?

They would treat Torre like step-child because they can, because, in some ways, he’s allowed it, but mostly because in an organization like the Yankees, the level of insecurity and jealousy is off-the-charts. This is about power, and Torre’s popularity and fame does not sit well with some of the higher ups.

The Yankee executives may simply not agree on what they should do yet. I’d believe that. In the meantime, Joe, as he has always done, waits it out. Mum’s the word. Either he’s noble or a sap. Which one of these?

Other than Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada, no Yankee was more critical to the team’s second-half surge than Joba "The Heat" Chamberlain. Taking over what had become a seventh and eighth-inning quagmire, Chamberlain lent both stabilizing and dominating elements to the team’s bullpen equation, giving the Yankees their most effective bridge to Mariano Rivera since the days of Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton. Chamberlain also evoked comparisons to a young Rivera, who in 1996 turned the seventh and eighth innings into ongoing nightmares for most opposing hitters. Yet, Chamberlain reminds me just as much of another great Yankee set-up reliever of long ago, one who has been mostly forgotten, even by the team’s diehard observers.

Ron Davis was never a top-notch phenom in the manner of Chamberlain, who leapfrogged through the Yankee system this summer—just one year removed from being drafted out of the University of Nebraska. A non-descript reliever with a common name, Davis came to the Yankees from the Cubs in the middle of the 1978 season. Davis was the unheralded return for a washed up Ken Holtzman, who had become the bane of both Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner. Davis was actually the player to be named later in the deal, with the official announcement of his inclusion not happening until two days after Holtzman had been dispatched to the Windy City. I’m sure that few Yankee fans gave a second thought to hearing the name of Ron Davis for the first time.

Late in the 1978 season, Davis made his major league debut. He hardly made a stirring impression. In four relief appearances, he coughed up runs at a rate of nearly 12 runs per nine innings. Numbers aside, Davis didn’t look very impressive from a physical standpoint, either. With his oversized wire-frame glasses, pointy nose, and wide hips, the tall and gangly Texas looked like a misshapen schoolteacher. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Davis never pitched in the major leagues again.

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Well, we all know what team He is pulling for. And wouldn’t you know it, the Red Sox and Indians are still playing baseball (my guess is that the ALCS will go at least six). But in Yankeeland, all thoughts are focused squarely on the future. First up, of course, Joe Torre. As Ed Price reports, Don Mattingly, thought to be the leading candidate for Torre’s job, may not be interested in the position after all.

So far, there is no news to report yet, but that may change over the course of the afternoon.

In the meantime, whatta ya hear, whatta ya say?

According to a report in the New York Post yesterday:

Hank and Hal Steinbrenner will share leadership of father George’s beloved Bronx Bombers in an arrangement to be further ironed out at top-level meetings in Tampa this week.

“George has taken on a role like the chairman of a major corporation,” said team president Randy Levine. “He’s been saying for years he’s wanted to get his sons involved in the family business. Both of them have stepped up and are taking on the day-to-day duties of what’s required to run the Yankees.”

“There’s always been a succession – and that’s myself and my brother,” Hank told The Post in an exclusive interview.

He said he and Hal will have final say on baseball decisions as well as the running of the YES Network and the construction of the new Yankee Stadium.

“I’ll pay more attention to the baseball part. The stadium, that’s more Hal. But basically everything will be decided jointly.”

“What’s nice is the Boss is there – he’s an office door away,” said Levine.

The Yankee brass will arrive later today in Tampa for the organizational meetings that are due to begin tomorrow. First up: the fate of Joe Torre.

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Once again, the Yankees have left Joe Torre twisting in the wind. And once again, Torre might have them exactly where he wants them. In recent days, the New York papers have been filled with support for Torre–from columnists to players (Robinson Cano, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Ron Villone, Mariano Rivera and Roger Clemens to name a few). Heck, even David Ortiz praised Torre yesterday.

The Yankees are expected to sort out Torre’s future with the team early next week when top executives meet in Tampa. The latest has them offering Torre the job with a significant paycut (from $7 million to 4). Torre will still come out smelling like a rose if the Yankees decide not to bring him back, and by being silent, he’s putting the onus squarely on them.

We all know how much Torre loves being the manager of the New York Yankees, and we know he’s been willing to take a certain amount of crap from the front office–maybe he just lets it roll off his back–in order to keep the position.

So, regardless of whether or not you think he should return, here’s my question: Will Joe Torre be managing the 2008 Yankees?