Comments on Boy of Summer: Book Review: The Yankee Years, by Joe Torre and To...

Here's the thing - it's not up to Joe Torre to rev...

2009-05-11T09:40:00.000-04:00

Here's the thing - it's not up to Joe Torre to reveal that such and such player cried. Especially when many of these players are still active. If they want to reveal it about themselves, fine. But somehow, I don't think Kevin Brown wanted the world to know that he curled up in the fetal position in the Tampa Bay clubhouse.

Besides, most of those players didn't get the chance to have their own say in the book. If Torre/Verducci were going to really do the comprehensive book they claimed "The Yankee Years" was, you have all sides, not just Joe's Guys.

What makes it all even more hypocritical on Joe's part is how many times he preached "what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse." Unless he's got a book to sell, and then all bets are off!

Take care.

I rather appreciated getting a bit of in insider's...

2009-05-11T09:20:00.000-04:00

I rather appreciated getting a bit of in insider's view into some of these players' struggles. People crack under pressure. Men cry sometimes. We all (like Damon) struggle with whether we really want to continue pursuing our occupation when it gets difficult. It's just a part of life.

Knowing that there was something going on emotionally for these guys helps to remind me that they're human, not just a set of numbers, subject to more than just statistical flukes, standard deviations and regression to the mean.

I doubt that anybody's opinions of Clemens or Farnsworth or Brown or Damon or Pavano or anyone else was appreciably changed by what this book intimated. If you didn't like A-Rod before, well, this gave you more fuel for your fire. If you liked him, this gave you a reason to sympathize.

But I don't think Torre insulted anybody or called anyone names or made anyone look anything other than a little more real than they look in the box scores.

And like I said, I didn't buy his pleading ignorance about the steroid thing then, and I don't buy it now.

You wrote: "For one thing, Torre has too much clas...

2009-05-10T17:27:00.000-04:00

You wrote: "For one thing, Torre has too much class to dish out juicy details of other people's personal lives, or compromise people's standing in the game, or otherwise make a quick buck at the expense of others."

I gotta disagree with that. For one thing, how many times did Torre write about players crying - Kevin Brown, Kyle Farnsworth, etc. The Johnny Damon stuff in the book was uncalled for as well.

And how about the A-Fraud and Single White Female stuff? What was the purpose of that, other than to make things even harder for him in the game?

To me, Joe has no class, as witnessed by him snubbing A-Rod with an invite for a charity event!

As for the steroids stuff, Joe is now acting shocked, shocked about Manny. Gimme a break.