[BluesDuke]

Actually, he was a good manager of mediocre Cardinals and Mets clubs (he won a division before that with - drumroll, please - an eaely 1980s Atlanta Braves team who assuredly overachieved that particular season). He isn't exactly Casey Stengel or Whitey Herzog, but Mr. Torre is a very good manager. And anyone who says that simply anyone could have won 90 games managing last year's Yankees (huh? not the 114 games of the 1998 Yankees?) is talking through his chapeau.

But they made the same arguments about Stengel, too. Stengel had managed even worse teams in Brooklyn and Boston before taking the 1949-60 Yankees. The point that he had previously been trying to teach John McGraw baseball to the Bad News Bears was simply irrelevant to a good prejudicial image, sometimes even after Stengel had won his ten pennants in twelve seasons. All the cash, wheeling and dealing, and franchise-player attractiveness on earth is not going to guarantee you a damn thing. (Were it not for a shortstop who seems to have learned how to play defence from Bob Cousy last October, the 2001 Yankees wouldn't have even gotten to the League Championship Series.)

But Torre is a good manager. If any manager in this game seems to be overrated today, it is Tony LaRussa.

[hobbes1]

Agreee on La Russa.... But Torre managing the Yanks, is the guy Born on third Base, but the media treats him as though he legged out a Triple...That's my beef....

As I said, he has every advantage ANY coach not named Phil Jackson could ever dream of...