A former teammate, current TV analyst and dedicated bridge player, Tim McCarver chose a term from that card game when reflecting on Joe Torre.
"Anyone who ever attached themselves to Joe's wagon, and he was an absolutely terrific player who drew a lot of attachments, knew he would eventually be a lay-down success as a manager," McCarver said from his Sarasota, Fla., home. "It was a lay-down because of his knowledge of the game and his skill in handling people."
Frank Torre, a former first baseman with the Milwaukee Braves and Philadelphia Phillies who preceded his brother to the major leagues by four years, said, "The difference between Joey and I is that baseball is part of my life while baseball has been all of his life."
"Ever since he went into pro ball and reached the big leagues," Frank Torre said from his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., "he managed along with the manager, always preparing himself. I think he learned something every step along the way."
At 67, Joe Torre is beginning a new chapter as manager of the Dodgers. Renowned nationally, celebrated for leading the New York Yankees to four World Series titles and 12 straight postseason appearances, he is a long way from a formative period when a baseball life may have represented a refuge from the tension of a Brooklyn home in which his father, an NYPD detective, dealt physical and verbal abuse on his family.
"There were weapons in the house and often threats that he would use them," Frank Torre said of Joe Sr., "and it was probably toughest on Joey, who was the youngest of the five kids by eight years. Joey would come home from school or playing ball, see our dad's car parked out front, and looked for ways to stay out longer."
Often it was on the skin diamonds near his home in the Marine Park section of Brooklyn. His sister, Marguerite, who has been a nun for more than 50 years, gave him his first glove. Another sister, Rae, still lives in that Brooklyn house, having never married.
Frank Torre said he and Joe (a third brother and the oldest, Rocco, died of a heart attack in 1996 as Joe was closing in on a World Series title in his first year as the Yankees' manager) suspect a correlation between the abuse their mother endured and their sisters' choices. Maybe it was evident, too, Frank said, in the shyness his brother exhibited for many years. Baseball represented self esteem, the diamond a place to hide.
