AND NOW A WORD FROM THE MANAGER OF QUEENSBURY

Tonight Torre scolded AROD in the press for his attempt to distract or confuse the left side of the Toronto infield. This is so typically Torre and one of the many reasons he should have been excused from the indignities of major league managing some time back.

Any reader of this blog knows I have little use for AROD. I think he's every bit the choker he's cracked up to be. And I find these little tricks of his--the slapped glove, the "call"--to be positively infuriating. But here's the thing. I think they are infuriating because he's such a choker. There is no talent in the game who is less of a gamer than AROD, and these pranks of his, intended to be the sign of a gamer, are in fact just the signs of his inauthenticity; they are the ersatz indices of a gamesmanship that AROD doesn't really possess.

Torre on the other hand objects to AROD's ruses because they simulate gamesmanship rather too closely for the comfort of his conscience; they represent a skirting of the manners, though not the rules of the game, and as such they offend Torre's exorbitant sense of baseball decorum. This, by the way, is the same sense that leads him to discourage his pitchers from the rough justice of bean ball retaliation. Torre doesn't want to win "that way," which is why I believe he responded in the end to fellow manager John Gibbons' accusation that what AROD did reflected poorly on "Yankee pride."

Well, I would remind Holy Joe that Yankee pride begins with winning. Losing with dignity is like dying with dignity, a contradiction in terms. So instead worrying whether his players are cheating to win--this in a league mind you that is defined by steroids, amphetimines, corked bats, and various illegal pitching substances--he should be worrying about why it doesn't seem to be working. He's alot like AROD in this regard: his moral arbitration is the ersatz sign of a managerial seriousness he has long since lost.

Does Torre want authentic Yankee pride? Well, I would refer him to the sainted Whitey Ford, who probably never threw a legal pitch in his career or Yogi Berra, who scuffed the baseballs for him. Together they were on 14 pennant winning teams in 15 seasons, during which stretch they won 9 championships. The greatest home run in the history of the game, Bobby Thompson's shot heard round the world, probably resulted from a crafty sign-stealing system. Does it lose any of its allure, any of its class on that account. I think not. And if Torre thinks it does, and he evidently does, I would suggest he involve himself in another athletic form, because baseball, from Ty Cobb to Gaylord Perry to Sammy Sosa to Barry Bonds has always been about the cheating at one level or another. Torre thinks such conduct is beneath him and the Yankees, but what is beneath them is the brand of ball they have come to play under him, where the old saying "if you're not cheating you're not trying" has been reversed and cheating has become the only sign of effort his team puts forth.

Torre protects his players against perfectly valid charges of listless play, but he will not protect them against Red Sox headhunters or Blue Jay whiners, which is to say he will protect them from the opinion of fans who want to see them win but will not protect them against the actions or the grievances of competitors paid to make them lose. In this case, he would rather fuel the fire of ridicule surrounding AROD, even though he knows it will damage his performance going forward, than defend his player in despite of his own exaggerated scruples.

And so we have the umpteenth reason to dismiss Torre:
HOLY JOE, HE'S TOO GOOD FOR THE GAME.