The Yankee Years

by Joe Torre

  “And there's a lot of fans out there who like what I do and a lot of charities out there I can help by being a ballplayer. I'm thinking about baseball now but I'm also thinking about life after baseball. There are so many people I can impact, and baseball gives me that avenue to do it.”

  It wasn't so simple, however. It would be months before Damon was fully vested in playing baseball again, months in which the Yankees’ season staggered and swooned. At the same time, Abreu and Giambi were also out of shape and unproductive. On the same day Damon returned to camp, Abreu strained an oblique muscle while taking batting practice. Giambi hadn't done any running all winter, restricting his workouts to weight training and cardio machines. His legs, back and hips had pained him too much to do any running, the result, he would later discover, of having unusually high arches in his feet. The Yankees, quite literally, began the year in bad shape.

  Torre had another issue to consider that spring: Should he bend his team rules to accommodate the possible signing of Roger Clemens? Clemens visited the Yankees at Legends Field on March 7, still coy about whether he was going to come out of “retirement” a third time or not. The Yankees understood, however, that bringing in Clemens meant allowing him the same privileges that the Houston Astros had granted him the previous three years. The Astros permitted Clemens to leave the team between his starts whenever he wished. So if Clemens wanted to watch his son, Koby, play minor league baseball or caddy for his wife, Debbie, at their local golf club championship, he was free to ditch his teammates. Clemens wasn't interested in giving up such a privilege to return to baseball.

  Torre had allowed players to leave the team in the past, but only starting pitchers between starts and only then with work-related issues, such as the medical treatments Kevin Brown needed for his back.

  “I turned down a lot of regular players who wanted to go to graduations and things and I couldn't let them go,” Torre said. “Wade Boggs asked me once and I told him no. You can't make a case for regular players.”

  Torre considered relief pitchers also as too necessary to allow them to take leaves of absence. Indeed, during that 2007 season, in June, closer Mariano Rivera asked Torre for permission to skip the Yankees’ series in Colorado to attend his child's school graduation. Torre told him no, that the Yankees could not afford to let him go.

  “I'm sorry,” Rivera told Torre, “but I'm going to go whether I have permission or not.”

  “Listen,” Torre said,”I can't stop you from going, but if it comes to the eighth or ninth inning and we have a lead and we need you and you're not there, what do I say to people? You tell me what I'm supposed to say. Say you're gone without permission? Do you want to deal with that kind of shit? I don't know what you want me to say, but I can't tell people I gave you permission when there are 24 other guys counting on you. I can't do that.”

  Rivera understood. He did not leave. And the Yankees were swept three games by the Rockies. Rivera wasn't needed at all.

  As a starting pitcher, Clemens was different. He wasn't needed in the four games between starts. Still, Torre would have to decide if his disappearances would cause resentment or adversity within the team. At least Gary Sheffield and Randy Johnson, each traded after the 2006 season, were not still around. Torre figured both Sheffield and Johnson, both of whom were established stars given to moodiness, might have had trouble with the Yankees granting a privilege to Clemens that had not been extended to them. The Clemens Family Plan might have caused problems in a clubhouse with Sheffield and Johnson in it, Torre thought.”Cash felt the same way and it was for probably the same reasons,” Torre said. To find out whether it still might cause resentment with the 2007 Yankees, Torre talked to some of his star players.

  “Cashman told me in spring training we had a shot at Roger and this was going to be a part of his deal,”Torre said.”It was part of the rules. If you wanted to get him it was part of the package. To be honest, when it was presented to me I first thought, I can't have that with this team. So when I got the heads-up then that he might be coming, I mentioned it to Jeter and Jason and Alex. I talked to them individually and casually, behind the batting cage. I said, ‘I've got to know, is this going to bother anybody?’ And everybody said, ‘As long as he wins ballgames we don't give a shit about what he does.’ No one had a problem with it.

  “A lot of it depends on the makeup of your team. The comparison to me is when Richie Allen was coming from Philadelphia to the Cardinals when I was playing with the Cardinals. And we had stars like Bob Gibson and Lou Brock. Richie would show up late but we would protect his ass and nobody would know it. But then Richie was with the Dodgers and it was totally different. Richie would show up late there and players would be waiting for him to show up in the parking lot just so they could show up after him. So it depends on the makeup of your team. I just had a feeling that Roger wasn't going to be running home all the time and abusing the privilege. I said to Cash, ‘I don't think it will be an issue, but we'll accept whatever it is.’

  “My thinking is you have to see how it affects other people, and allow certain things because of that. I may be off base. That's just the way I feel, knowing the personality of a team, knowing what's real and what's made-up.”

  Of course, Clemens didn't know it yet, but he had far bigger problems than securing a season's worth of hall passes from the Yankees. Three months earlier, federal agents had raided the Long Island, New York, home of Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant who for more than a decade had provided performance-enhancing drugs to baseball players. The agents discovered personal checks and phone records linked to Brian McNamee, the personal trainer of Clemens. It was only a matter of time before Clemens’ career and his life would blow up into a complete mess.

  The Yankees knew they would need Clemens, even with the righthander turning 45 that season. They went to spring training having committed two of the five spots in the starting rotation to Carl Pavano, who had not pitched in the big leagues since midway through the 2005 season because of a series of ailments, and Kei Igawa, a lefthander whom the Yankees acquired as a posted free agent from Japan at the cost of $46 million, including a $26 million posting fee that stunned everybody else in baseball.

  Igawa inspired almost no confidence in his own clubhouse. Even before the Yankees were announced as having placed the winning bid in the posting process, an American League general manager, asked about how Igawa might fare in the major leagues, said, “He better stay out of the American League. Maybe if you put him in the NL West, with the pitcher batting and the bigger ballparks in that division, you might get by with him as a fourth or fifth starter. But he can't pitch in the American League. We had no interest in him.”

  The Yankees fell in love with Igawa, valuing him higher than anybody else. Not coincidentally, the Yankees turned in their bid on Igawa soon after losing the posting process for Diasuke Matsuzaka, another posted free agent from Japan. The Boston Red Sox blew away the field with a posting fee of $51.1 million for Matsuzaka, who was considered one of the best pitchers in the world. The Yankees had bid slightly more than $30 million for Matsuzaka. How was it possible that they could bid nearly the same amount for Igawa, who, though a strikeout champion in Japan, gave up too many home runs and walks, rarely broke 90 miles an hour with his fastball and did not own a single impressive out pitch? Well, they made sure they weren't going to go 0-for-2 in posting processes. Igawa was all theirs.

  Meanwhile, free agent pitcher Ted Lilly was hoping the Yankees would sign him. Lilly had cried the day in 2002 when Cashman traded him to Oakland in a three-way deal in which the Yankees wound up with Jeff Weaver, who turned out to be the worst of the three pitchers traded. (Detroit obtained Jeremy Bonderman, who would help beat the Yankees on the Tigers’ way to the 2006 pennant.) Lilly fit the profile of a classic Yankee contributor: a left-handed pitcher who thrived in the pressure of New York and the AL East. He wanted to be a Yankee. Lilly had just won 15 games for the Toronto Blue Jays. He had no major arm i
ssues.

  Cashman didn't want Lilly. He preferred Igawa, though Igawa would cost the Yankees more money over four years ($46 million, including the $26 million posting fee) than what Lilly would cost on the free agent market ($40 million, with the Cubs winning his services). Cashman told Torre, “Igawa's as good as Lilly, and he won't cost us as much,” because the posting fee did not count toward the Yankees’ official payroll, thus rendering it tax-free money as far as their luxury tax bill was concerned.

  “As soon as Cash said that—Igawa was as good as Lilly—that was good enough for me,” Torre said.

  Igawa was no sure thing, and even the Yankees knew it. When the Yankees introduced Igawa at a news conference after his signing, Cashman did as much as he could to lower expectations for his $46 million man.

  “We're trying to be very careful and respectful of the process, and not put too much on his shoulders,” Cashman said then. “He seems like a tough kid and he's obviously pitched in front of big crowds for a very successful organization. At the same time, there's going to be a lot of new experiences for him here in the States and in this league. We'll have to wait and see what we get.”

  The Yankees had passed on Lilly as well as Gil Meche, another free agent, and traded Randy Johnson so they could commit two spots on their rotation to Pavano and Igawa. Worse, there was little insurance behind them, none of it proven. The Yankees had people such as Darrell Rasner, Matt DeSalvo, Jeff Karstens and Chase Wright behind them, all of them underwhelming. Phil Hughes was the crown jewel of the farm system, but he was only 20 years old. The Yankees had placed high-risk bets that Pavano could stay healthy and that Igawa could get major league hitters out, and it was apparent extremely quickly that both bets were losing propositions. In the case of Igawa, it took only one day to figure out he was a bust.

  Bullpen catcher Mike Borzello was assigned to catch Igawa's first throwing session in spring training. Borzello was looking forward to it, especially after Billy Eppler, the assistant to Cashman, had raved about Igawa to Borzello.

  “Did you catch Igawa yet?” Eppler asked excitedly.

  “No,” Borzello replied.

  “Just wait,” Eppler said. “He's got a nasty changeup. You'll see.”

  Igawa threw to Borzello at Legends Field. Borzello could not believe this was the same guy Eppler was talking about, the same guy to whom the Yankees gave $46 million, and the same guy the Yankees wanted instead of Lilly.

  “I caught Kei Igawa,” Borzello said. “It was awful. He maybe threw three strikes out of 25 pitches. The changeup was horrible. I was reaching all over the place for his pitches.”

  Eppler saw Borzello after the throwing session that day.

  “So, what did you think of Igawa?” Eppler asked.

  “The truth?” Borzello said.

  “Yeah.”

  “He threw three strikes the whole time. His changeup goes about 40 feet. His slider is not a big league pitch. His command was terrible.”

  Eppler was stunned.

  “I'll tell you this,” Borzello continued. “I hope he's hurt, so there's an explanation for throwing like that.”

  “Oh, really?” Eppler said.

  “Really,” Borzello said. “He was terrible.”

  Igawa would never get any better.

  “His command was a big problem,” Torre said.”He could never throw two pitches in a row to the same spot, even in a bullpen session. He would miss and miss badly with his location consistently.”

  Borzello said the investment in a pitcher like Igawa caught the attention of the players in the clubhouse, who had once known the Yankees to be the big-game hunters of the pitching market, having acquired such talents as Jimmy Key, Orlando Hernandez, David Wells, David Cone and Clemens over the years.

  “You're talking about a guy pitching for the New York Yankees,“ Borzello said. “The New York Yankees always went after the premier guys. And after investing $200 million in payroll, why are you putting the ball in the hands of this kind of pitcher? It made no sense. But the Yankees kept making the same mistake. Pavano, [Jaret] Wright, Igawa … other organizations scrape up that kind of pitching. But the Yankees?”

  These were the 2007 Yankees, the team on which Torre, in the last year of his contract, would be placing his managerial future. Forty percent of the rotation was assigned to Pavano, who couldn't stay healthy, and Igawa, who couldn't throw a strike. Pavano, because of injuries to the other starters, was the Yankees’ Opening Day pitcher. The center fielder, Damon, wanted to quit. The right fielder, Abreu, was hurt and out of shape. The first baseman, Giambi, was too out of shape to play first-base anymore, so he had to be the designated hitter while the first-base position was an open casting call among Doug Mientkiewicz, Josh Phelps and Andy Phillips, none of whom could hit as a first baseman should. The biggest acquisition to come, Clemens, was turning 45 and had successfully lobbied for special treatment. Did this look like a team that should be expected to win the World Series? And did Torre have any loyalists left in the front office after being embarrassed in the public stocks after the 2006 Division Series?

  In the clubhouse and on the field, these were no longer the Yankees as the baseball world knew them. They wore the same pinstripes, played in the same ballpark, claimed ownership to the same 26 World Series titles, but these Yankees were no longer the same Yankees who could regard the World Series as a virtual birthright. Most obvious of all, these were no longer George Steinbrenner's Yankees. The Boss had imposed his will and spirit upon the entire organization and the Yankees were the better and the worse for it all these years. Now there was a vacuum where there had been so much energy. For Torre, Steinbrenner's decline was another blow to the underpinnings of his management. Steinbrenner could be demanding and unreasonable, but Torre could always speak to him, and usually find the right words to keep The Boss from completely blowing a fuse. In 2007, the pipeline was cut. Torre knew it, especially when he would be leaving Legends Field in the early evening after a full day of work and see Steinbrenner only then coming to work himself. On the last day of spring training it was obvious that Steinbrenner was too frail to be The Boss.

  Torre rode the elevator at Legends Field to the fourth floor to say goodbye to Steinbrenner. The Yankees were preparing to fly from Tampa to New York to begin the season in two days. The team would hold its annual Welcome Home dinner on the eve of the opener. Steinbrenner sat in the suite adjacent to his office. Hank Steinbrenner was there. Felix Lopez was there. Steinbrenner's wife, Joan, was there.

  “Boss, I'm just here to say goodbye,” Torre said.

  “Okay,” Steinbrenner said. “I'll see you tomorrow night.”

  Joan looked at Torre, and as they moved away from Steinbren-ner and toward the door, she told him with a concerned look on her face, “I don't know how we're going to get him there.”

  They did get Steinbrenner to New York for the dinner, in what stood as a rare trip for him then. Torre saw Steinbrenner at the dinner and walked across the room to greet him. Steinbrenner was sitting with his family. He looked frail. He was wearing dark glasses in the ballroom. And even beneath those dark glasses, as Torre could see, Steinbrenner was crying. He was choked up, hit by another emotional jag, at what was supposed to be the birthplace of optimism and sunshine, Opening Day eve. As Steinbrenner dabbed at a melancholy tear, Torre knew life with the Yankees would never be the same for both of them.

  The second game of the 2007 season was rained out, which was not a bad development for the Yankees. It kept them undefeated for one more day and postponed the hellish spring about to come their way. Alex Rodriguez peeled off his uniform and reassumed his proper East Side look: a green cable-knit sweater pulled over a black turtleneck, jeans and sneakers. His goal for the season was to be completely inoffensive, or, as third-base coach Larry Bowa constantly would remind him, “Vanilla.” Rodriguez was off to a good start, the green sweater and a March interview with New York AM radio station WFAN notwithstanding. Rodriguez said on air that whether he stay
ed with the Yankees or used an opt-out clause in his contract to leave for another team after the season would be decided by whether New York fans accepted him or not. “It's a do-or-die situation,” he said.

  “He's night and day from where he was last year,” Bowa said as the regular season began. “You could see it in him when spring training started. Everything he's doing is just natural. He's just letting his ability take over. I'm not going to use the word relaxed, because he's still intense. But there's a different look about him. He's not worried about everything that's going on around him. Vanilla. We use that word a lot when we talk. Simple. Keep it plain.

  “I only had to get on him once. It was a couple of days after he went on WFAN. And I gave it to him pretty good. I told him,’Why do you have to keep saying this stupid shit?’”

  Bowa was an important part of Torre's management of the team. Players respected him because he had the substantial big league résumé few coaches have in the modern game. Bowa played 16 years in the major leagues, collected 2,191 hits, won two Gold Gloves at shortstop, finished as high as third in Most Valuable Player Award voting, was selected to five All-Star Games and won a world championship with the 1980 Phillies. His fiery temper-ment, colorful vocabulary and reactionary nature made him a volatile manager with the Padres and Phillies, but as a coach he established himself as one of the best in the business: a hardworking student of the game who, most importantly, kept players from getting too comfortable. His in-your-face manner was a nice complement to the relaxed style of Torre, and it seemed to be exactly what not only A-Rod needed, but also a young player like second baseman Robinson Cano, who knew he could be a good major leaguer strictly on his talent, but didn't know the work it would require to be a great major leaguer.

  One day in April, talking about Cano, Bowa said, “He backhanded a ball the other day, an easy two-hopper he should have gotten in front of. He had a bad at-bat right before that. I'm convinced he took his at-bat out into the field with him. You have to stay on Robbie. Like out in Oakland. There was a relay and he just assumed Eric Chavez was going to stop at second base. He didn't. That's Robbie's fault. You have to assume the runner is going to continue, and then if you turn and see he's stopped, then you can relax. But he did the exact opposite. He just assumed Chavez wasn't going. That's a lazy mistake. I got on him pretty good about that.