KAPALUA, Maui -- Meeting Joe Torre has made a Yankee fan out of this Boston Red Sox diehard. Torre’s career has
amazed even himselfEven golf's most celebrated players -- here for the Mercedes Championships at the Plantation Course -- all stopped to chat with the manager of the World Series champion New York Yankees.
Two world championships in three years, skipper of major league baseball's single-season winningest team, Torre deserved a little R&R. And what better place to do it than here, according to Torre.
He likes it here so much that he extended his vacation for a third week in order to get in more golf with his wife, Ali.
Torre was a guest of the Kapalua Resort during Wednesday's pro-am, playing with PGA Tour pro Fred Funk.
How's his golf game?
"Well," says Torre, who plays to around an 18-handicap, "let's just say that Fred asked me if he should throw the (golf) ball at me. Maybe I have a better chance of hitting it. Maybe he should."
He was here when Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Yogi Berra kissed and made up after a 14-year feud.
"I called George to congratulate him. I called Yogi, but he was off doing something, and got to talk with Carmen, his wife. I'll give him a call back later on. I was pleased as hell," Torre said. "I know he played with the Mets and he managed the Mets, but to me Yogi is always a Yankee."
AFTER the Yankees won the World Series in 1996, Torre had asked Berra to come to Yankee Stadium. "We were getting our championship rings and I wanted Yogi to present me with mine," Torre said. The Yankee Hall of Famer was touched by the request but he wouldn't come to the stadium.
"I'm happy to say I'm going to make the same request of him this year and I have a feeling it may be a yes. I think we're going to get the rings on opening day this year."
"He's a tyrant, no question, but he wants to win," Torre says about his boss.
"He kidded with me last spring and asked if any manager had ever gone through a season undefeated. Obviously, in George's mind, there is still room for improvement He has high standards. I don't mind being accountable to someone who gets you the equipment to win."
Torre is still amazed by what has happened in his life, considering he was fired three times before getting the Yankees' job.
No three strikes and out for him.
"I got fired by the three teams (Mets, Braves and Cardinals) I played for. I thought that was the end of my managing career," he said.
"I had no connection with the Yankees other than I was almost traded to them in 1976. But I knew I was going to play this game just one more year and I wanted to manage. I became the next manager for the Mets."
IT proved to be the right career move for Torre, although it kept him from getting in the World Series. "But it made it that much more wonderful when I did get into one in 1996," Torre said.
He also can't get over that his Yankees, who won a record 125 games including postseason, have everyone back.
"So we're going to try this thing again with the same cast of characters," Torre said.
"We have a very unselfish team. Nobody was overly involved with the numbers they put up or the recognition they got. An expression I like to use is that 'We don't spike the ball.' We have an inner conceit about us. We don't need to tell people how good we are."
So how good were the '98 Yankees?
"We won more games than anybody ever won. In that regard, it's tough to argue that we're not the best team. So in my estimation, this is the best team that ever played the game."