Torre wins whatever the coast

Some outtakes from the commercials that Joe Torre made about his “new life” on the Left Coast are much funnier than the scenes that made the final cut. No matter. Whether he’s pretending to surf or practice yoga, or just driving around town in a convertible, what comes through is how much the man loves Los Angeles.

What you might not know watching the same laid-back guy manage the Dodgers is that still he loves winning baseball games more.

Torre was born and raised in Brooklyn, and the first time we met was in 1990 in Chicago, by way of St. Louis. He’d just been hired by the Cardinals to replace Whitey Herzog, marking the third club Torre toiled for as a field hand that thought enough of his acumen to bring him back as a field manager. Candidly, Torre admitted having second thoughts.

He’d managed the New York Mets for five seasons without distinction, then turned in a first-place finish and two seconds in Atlanta in three years and got fired anyway. He could make fun of those experiences, but they convinced him to take a job in the broadcast booth for the Angels. For six years, Torre had a cushy job, a wife happy that he was home most of the time, good hours, lots of golf – just about everything he wanted.

But he had just turned 50, too, and said he decided that what he wanted more than any of it was the World Series ring he never got as a player. So he’d come back for one more shot, determined to get it out of his system rather than moan about passing it up forever. What Torre found surprised him.

“I guess I just realized that I like the view better from this dugout,” Torre said, running his hand along the padded bench, “than anywhere else in the park.”

The self-deprecating humor served Torre well when he landed the New York Yankees’ job a half-dozen years later. In a clubhouse always brimming with alpha males, he figured out which screws to tighten and which to loosen, and did both without turning anyone off.

In all, Torre won four World Series, six pennants and made the playoffs every one of his dozen seasons there. Hank Steinbrenner’s idea of a reward was to cut Torre’s salary roughly into thirds, and hand over the final chunk only if the Yankees made it all the way to the World Series.

Torre, who knows his way around a racetrack, knows a losing bet when he sees one. More important, he’d lost the stomach to prove his worth to the Yankee brass one more time and walked out the door.

He didn’t have a contingency plan, but when the Dodgers came calling, Torre couldn’t resist.