* On the go with Joe

New York newspapers devoted a lot of space to the return of Torre as he visits the Big Apple for his book tour.

The New York Times published this article on fan reaction during his Barnes and Noble stop in Manhattan.

The story, written by Joshua Robinson, offers the following thoughts by the author as expressed to his “customers”:

Yes, he stands by everything in the book, which he began working on nearly two years ago. No, it was never meant to be a tell-all exposé. Yes, he would have written it even if the Yankees had given him the contract he wanted to continue as the manager. And, Torre maintained over and over, there are no hard feelings, even if some people think there are.

“There’s no question bitter things happened,” he said during the bookstore appearance. “But when I left, it was more a sense of relief, trust me.”

A sidebar has Torre in an interview on WFAN saying he had supported Roger Clemens when he hit Mike Piazza in the head and even during the World Series when the pitcher threw a chunk of bat at the Mets catcher, but now — with Clemens eye-deep in all the steroids mess —

“I didn’t necessarily tie the two together,” Torre said. “But in retrospect with everything that’s going on, it could very well have been.”

That’s convenient. Of course it just could have been Clemens was being a jerk and that pharmaceuticals played no role in the incidents.

As neutral as I am in this (actually leaning in defense of the authors), some quotes attributed to Torre just seem annoying. To paraphrase a routine from Saturday Night Live: Really? Torre would have written the book even if he was still with the Yankees? Really. And they would have gone for that? Really.

(And sorry, but my radar goes into autopilot when someone says “Trust me.”)

As is usually the case, you have to ignore the media hype and go to the man on the street. Again, from the Times article:

Their reaction to Torre’s comments in the book was mixed. Some, like Michael Williams, 29, simply saw the book as a “nice memento of his 12 years as manager of the Yankees,” a run that included four World Series championships.

But others, like Bill Caffran, a retired New York City police officer who was wearing a Yankees hat, sweater and jacket, were taken aback.

“I don’t think he really said anything that a real Yankee fan didn’t know already,” Caffran said of Torre. “But I was still surprised that he wrote a book hanging out some of that dirty laundry. I always thought he was good about keeping those kinds of things in-house.”

On the co-author side of the coin, Times‘ columnist Harvey Araton weighed in on the book store visit and observed that

The inclusion of [Tom] Verducci, who writes for Sports Illustrated, has made for a more comprehensive work, if you overlook the unavoidable conflict of a respected journalist joining in a lucrative deal with a major figure in the industry he covers [my emphasis]. But it also provides some camouflage for Torre to say, as he recently told Jack Curry of The New York Times, “I’m probably going to get more credit or more blame than I deserve, whichever way you want to look at it.”

Torre also stopped by the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls, NJ, (the metro area press was not invited to this one) and even had time to make an appearance on NPR’s All Things Considered, which, if you consider it, is pretty high-brow for a baseball book. (Here’s another NPR story, in which Madeleine Brand talks to New York Post baseball columnist Kevin Kernan about why Torre would trash the team that made him a baseball giant.)

Araton also said,

I don’t blame Torre for writing a book, for being proud of what he achieved in New York. The Yankees treated him shamefully at the end and were classless in excluding him from the Yankee Stadium finale. I just wish Torre would say he told it as he saw it and stop pretending that there is nothing in The Yankee Years more incendiary than a rundown of his starters for a four-game series in August.

He winds up his column,

The miracle of his Yankees years was the kind, paternal face he put on such a bully franchise. But when he couldn’t beat the owners in their final contract dispute, he obviously decided to join them. He behaved as they do. He got even with a book.

The more he dodges the fallout, the more he sounds like a true Steinbrenner Yankee.

I’m still waiting for my copy, but even without having read it, I still don’t understand what the fuss is about. I’ve spoken with some people in the publishing and sports communities who say they wish Torre had not written his book. Whether they’re enamored of the Yankees reputation or the sanctity of the locker room, I’m not sure, but this is hardly the first time. And if the yardstick of the book is what it says about Alex Rodriguez: haven’t many of these reporters and columnists who are coming out against Torre been saying the same things for years? Seems a bit hypocritical of them to chastise someone else for what the same action, unless they believe there’s a different set of standards for their profession and Torre’s, that he should have been more of a company guy.

But he’s no longer with the company, is he?

Must be a New York thing; you think the book would have gotten this much attention if Torre was manager of the Atlanta Braves (again)?

Have other sports personalities been critical of their co-workers in their books? Sure. Could Torre have left those things out? Sure. Would it have enjoyed this kind of publicity without those comments? Please.

* * *

And if the august New York Times reports the story thus, what about the tabloids?

The New York Post went on the attack…