* Say it ain't so, Joe.

I have not read Joe Torre’s new book, written with SI’s Tom Verducci and published by , but judging by the buzz from several sources, it’s a tell-all in which he “blasts” Alex Rodriguez, Brian Cashman and George Steinbrenner, among others.

The New York Post, in its typical tabloid headline-screaming fashion, yells “Joe Blows: Rips, bosses, “-A-Fraud’ in new book.” The headline for Bill Madden’s column in New York Daily News states, “In book, former Yankee manager Joe Torre takes aim at A-Rod, George Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman.”

“According to a source familiar with the book, Torre does not step out of character,” writes Madden. “He simply recites the facts as he saw them and does not unfairly disparage the Yankees. As has been reported, he reiterates the claim that Cashman did not stand up for him at the crucial meeting with the Steinbrenners in Tampa as the 2007 season wound down and the Yankee brass discussed whether to bring him back or not, even though publicly Cashman had let it be known that he wanted Torre back as manager.”

Does that sound like blasting or ripping? It’s a matter of interpretation. In fact, if Torre was too vanilla, I could see how the marketing people would want to generate some buzz.

(And, of course, they saved this for the Sunday editions during a non-football week. Coincidence? I think not.)

I recently posted a entry about a forthcoming book which the marketing folks promise would feature ground-breaking material. The author contacted me, somewhat chagrined that they had taken that take, which as any semi-serious fan would know not to be true. He said he would be speaking with them to make sure future publicity would not include such language. Bravo, sir. It would be easy enough to just ignore such comments, but he obviously wants to be aboveboard about everything.

Back to Torre’s book…Depending on how the question is presented, you’ll get different responses. Most of what I’ve read seem to put the fans in Torre’s corner. If he said that several Yankees were prima donnas, this comes as a surprise? They’re professional, elite athletes, playing for the diamond of all sports franchises. Maybe it’s hard to be humble. But — again, without having read the book yet — it doesn’t seem so bad. With all the steroid’s nonsense (Radomski, Mark McGuire’s brother), it’ll be nice to get back to the “regular” dirt.

From MLB.com