Torre says, "Beltran wanted to hide among the trees"

Is it me, or does anybody else feel as if Torre is craving some east coast attention? Not only has he been ripping Yanks, he now has moved on to near Yanks as well.


To be clear, Joe Torre is one of the most over-rated managers in baseball. He had a fairly unimpressive managerial record with the Mets, Braves, and Cardinals before joining the Yankees.


Torre led the heavily funded, and no shortage in talent Yankees to four WS Championships (1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000), as a Mets fan the 2000 WS was too much to handle. Under his guidance the Yankees spent in excess of a billion dollars (more than the GNP of Monaco, Cayman Islands and St. Lucia to name a few) between 2001-2007, and was unable to bring home a championship.

Reviews of Torre's first year with the Dodgers were mixed. If not for Manny's arrival, the Dodgers would not have made the playoffs last year.


Here's Ben Shpigel of the NYT article. Carlos Beltran is about to enter his fifth season in New York — has it been that long already? — but he just as easily could have been doing so for the Yankees and not for the Mets. A quick rehash: Scott Boras, Beltrán’s agent, gave the Yankees one final shot at signing him and snatching him from the Mets’ grasp by proposing a six-year, $100 million contract — that’s for one year shorter and $19 million poorer than the Mets’ offer. The Yankees, having already added Carl Pavano and Randy Johnson, resisted.

With that in mind, Joe Torre touched on Beltrán’s reported desire to take that discount and play for the Yankees in the book he co-wrote with Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, “The Yankee Years.” Torre said: “Beltran wanted to come to us, so he could hide among the trees. Nobody wants to be that guy to lead.”

Before being honored at the Thurman Munson Dinner on Tuesday evening, Beltrán responded to Torre’s comments. “First of all, I don’t know Joe Torre personally, so I don’t know what kind of person he is,” Beltrán said. “The second thing I have to say is that when I met with the Yankees when I was a free agent, he wasn’t there, so you know, he didn’t know that we talked, so I didn’t meet him. So if he did say what he said, then that’s his opinion. I don’t have to comment on that. I feel very happy where I am.”

Not surprisingly, Beltrán added, he does not plan to read the book.