Weighing in on Joe Torre

UPDATE by Gilbert: Joe Torre has turned down an offer to continue as the Yankees’ manager. Wow.

I know a lot of Yankee fans are passionate about Joe Torre. Either they desperately want him gone or are hugging trees to save his job.

My question: Does it really matter? The arguing points being thrown out are wrong on both sides.

Sure, Torre’s teams won four World Series’, but to give Torre all the credit is misplaced. If he was managing the Devil Rays for the last 12 years, they would’ve been fighting to stay out of last every year. You have to give Torre credit for making the appropriate moves, but he had insanely good options.

On the other hand, to blame Joe Torre for the Yankees’ post-season failures the past few seasons is just as insane. No team can win the World Series every year. With eight teams in post-season, its a crap-shoot who wins the World Series (the 2006 Cardinals are a classic example…and look at how this year is panning out). 4 in 12 years is way ahead of the curve and the Yankees were right on the brink of winning two more. It’s not Joe Torre’s fault Chien-Mien Wang went completely cold and Derek Jeter left his “clutch” pants at home this year.

My personal opinion of Torre is mixed. I don’t think he’s the best in-game manager; but whatever small negative effect his actual managing skills have on the team is probably equaled out by the fact that his players love to play for him and that he can handle the pressure and the New York media.

Nonetheless, whether it’s Torre or Don Mattingly managing the Yankees next season, their success will all depend on what they do with their roster this off-season, and very little to do with who is managing the team.

Why should the same teams win every year?

Bill Plaschke wants the same handful of teams to be good in college football every year. To fans of South Florida and Boston College, your teams should never be good. Ever. Don’t you know your teams are supposed to be worse than Alabama, Penn State and Notre Dame?

It may be fair, it may even be occasionally fun, but it’s just not right.

This is a USC-Notre Dame show, for Knute’s sake!

The bear of a game should have been Alabama-Tennessee!

Shouldn’t we be circling that brawl that is Miami-Florida State?

Those three traditionally great games will be played Saturday, yet none of them will probably figure into the national championship race, so all eyes will be on Piscata-whatever tonight to watch the Who’sthats battle the Somethingoranothers.

I miss great teams to hate. I miss creaky characters to love. I miss familiar fight songs and enduring stadiums and Bevo.

This college football season, I really miss college football.

Wow. Heaven forbid you have to learn about new teams Plaschke. Heaven forbid fans of teams who are usually not that good have hope for once. The audacity to think their teams can compete.

This isn’t just about Plaschke — this is a popular sentiment in sports today. If a miracle happened and South Florida and Kansas faced off in the BCS championship game, media interest would be way down. People aren’t as interested in baseball because the Rockies are in the World Series and the Yankees aren’t. People stop watching the NBA playoffs after the Lakers are eliminated.

But what about the fans of those non-overhyped teams? Fans exist for every major sports team, they just don’t have the numbers the Yankees, Red Sox, Patriots, Cowboys and Lakers do. There are Rockies fans. There are Kansas football fans. Why shouldn’t they get a chance to taste the glory for once?

Because Bill Plaschke and other sportswriters don’t want to watch games between teams they don’t know anything about. Imagine if Plaschke had to do some real reporting, or do some research about one of these teams. That’s a no-no apparently.

Signal to Noise already wrote a great post about this. Read his as well.

Links of the week

Two Red Sox fans from Ladies… went to ALCS Games 3 & 4 in Cleveland and had a miserable experience dealing with Cleveland fans. There’s horrible fans everywhere — it’s sad that sports fans seem to get more pleasure in giving opposing fans a hard time than they do in seeing their own team win. Whatever happened to acting like you’ve been there before? (Ladies…)

The best (and funniest) NFL analysis you’ll see this week. (Hugging Harold Reynolds)

More people watched the Little League World Series than watched the NLCS. That’s horrible. Not just because people missed out on watching a fun Rockies team, but because people actually are more interested in 12-year olds playing baseball than the pros. (Bugs & Cranks)

I’m an Angels fan, so naturally, I don’t like the Red Sox. Here’s how to celebrate if the Red Sox lose Game 5 tonight. (Epic Carnival)

One great sports blogger interviews another: Larry Brown interviews Fanhouse’s Michael David Smith. (Larry Brown Sports)

Rickey Henderson may be baseball’s all-time stolen base leader, but Kenny Lofton just passed him in postseason steals. (Babes Love Baseball)