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Joe Torre

Joe Torre
Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, 2014
Ultimate Mets Database popularity ranking: 59 of 1218 players
Torre
Joseph Paul Torre
Born: July 18, 1940 at Brooklyn, N.Y.
Throws: Right Bats: Right
Height: 6.02 Weight: 205

Joe Torre has been the most popular Ultimate Mets Database daily lookup 20 times, most recently on July 18, 2023.

1b 3b Manager
Non-playing roles with Mets
  • Manager 1977 - 1981

First Mets game: April 8, 1975
Last Mets game: June 17, 1977

Brother of Frank Torre

Share your memories of Joe Torre

HERE IS WHAT OTHER METS FANS HAVE TO SAY:

Anthony J Reccoppa
March 21, 2001
This guy is total New York. I really liked him as our teams' manager because for as bad a roster he had, I thought he got more out of them than many other guys would have. Think of it...In 1977, his roster started with a pitching staff of Seaver, Koos, Matlack, Swann, Lockwood, ect. His line up had Kong, Milner, Milan, and a young Mazzilli. It did'nt look all that bad. But MD Grant traded and sold the soul of the team for a bag of balls, and Joe got screwed by the end of the season.

Coach HoJo 20
March 31, 2001
1 of 3 Yankees players that I actually tolerate. But every time he opens his mouth I learn to hate him a bit more.

Won Doney
June 13, 2001
I used to actually respect him. Then there was the incident with Roger Clemens.

Won Doney
June 18, 2001
If Joe Torre is such a great manager, how come the Mets were a last-place team during the years he managed them?

Mr. Sparkle
June 20, 2001
Everytime I hear him talk it turns my stomach. He lucked into a winning team and now will go to the hall of fame because of it.

Joe Figliola
August 10, 2001
I am embarrassed to say that this "man" has the highest batting average of all the players that I scored with 100 lifetime at-bats (.344). It's unfortunate that I lucked into those games when this "man" went 2-for-4 or 3-for-5.

On a recent note, check out the 10 August edition of New York Newsday. There is an interesting article in which Frank Robinson, baseball's disciplinarian, said that Torre used abusive language towards him in trying to prevent Ted Lilly from getting a six-game suspension for throwing at the Angels' Scott Spiezio. Robinson said he lost a lot of respect for Torre as a result of the latter's telephone tantrum. The article also mentions that Robinson hung the phone up on this "man."

As they say, no man is above the law; however, Joe Torre thinks he is whenever the Yankees are involved in on- field controversies (remember Knoblauch and Zeile's little basepath bump in 2000 when Torre and Mazzilli helped turn the umpire's out call into safe?). Kudos to Frank Robinson for not giving in to this "man's" childish appeals. This incident just proves once more that Joe Torre is baseball's biggest baby!

I'm also concerned that this "man" will likely get into the Hall of Fame thanks to the revamped Veterans Committee. Let's put it this way—I'd rather have a nondescript catcher named Rick Ferrell in than a "man" who lucked into a good team and offered zero contributions as a managerial innovator than Joe Torre.

The charismatic Casey Stengel, who like Torre had many unsuccessful years as a skipper before his championship run with the Yankees, at least was a shrewd manager who developed and employed such strategems as the platoon system. Since when does getting down on bended knee to your criminal owner and pleading with him not to trade Andy Pettitte considered a boon to the national pastime?

I could go on and write more about this "man," but I'll end here. The Met community knows where Joe Torre is coming from; and there will come a time when this success will turn against him. LET'S GO, METS!

Jim Snedeker
November 21, 2001
Joe has always seemed like a good baseball man, which is why we were all excited when he came to manage the Mets; it was almost like he was a legendary baseball archetype figure--and he wasn't even 40 years old yet.

I remember seeing him in the dugout at Shea, and not believing how dark he was. He was the darkest white guy I'd ever seen.

When he got canned, I remember seeing a touching photo in the paper of a young Mookie Wilson, bawling his eyes out and hugging Joe goodbye.

So why didn't he win with the Mets, but later win with the Yanks? Simple--as one sportswriter put it at the time, "The Mets don't got no good players."

Scrubbo McGlubbo
December 27, 2001
He was the guy I respected most on the Yankees, but his comments on Piazza after the Clemens beaning were out of line. I thought he was just being a big baby in going out of his way to say that he thought Texas Rangers catcher Ivan Rodriguez was the best catcher in the league. Obviously he's gonna defend his star pitcher, but he displayed no sense of decency over the fact that Clemens had just knocked Piazza out of the 2000 All-Star Game.

My respect for Torre dwindled after the beaning, as did my respect of Torre's Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer, who made similar "spirited" comments that Piazza was being a baby. This from a man walking around with a plate in his head due to the same circumstances. I guess the metal from his plate finally started to corrode and enter his bloodstream. From "happy baseball huckster" to "deranged madman" should be the title of Zimmer's autobiography.

Kudos to Piazza, a continually class act. Congrats to Joe Torre, easily the luckiest man alive four times over (Mets, Braves, Cardinals, Yankees).

Shari
May 17, 2002
What is the big debate about? Why was Joe a sucky manager with Mets? This is just another example of the "Post Mets Winner Syndrome" as I like to call it. It works both ways-Leave the Mets become a Hall of Famer like Jeff Reardon, Nolan Ryan, Jason Issringhausen, etc. or come to the Mets as a potential Hall of Famer and end up the ultimate Goat at Shea like Mickey Lolich, Randy Jones, Richie Hebner, Carlos Baerga, George Foster, Robin Ventura the list is just endless on this side of the coin. The jury is still out on Roberto Alomar, and Mike Piazza at least seems to have some immunity to this syndrome. You've all heard of the curse of the Bambino? Well this is ours.

Mr. Sparkle
July 8, 2002
The sight of this man sickens me. I want to punch his head every time I see him and that moron Don Zimmer sitting next to him. Managers are as good as their team, period. Good managers make good teams slightly better and bad teams almost mediocre. They get too much credit when they win and too much blame when they lose. Torre now wins because of where he is. Jeff Torborg could manage them to a ring. Torre will go to the hall as a manager simply because he was in the righ tplace at the right time. And I hate that commercial ( I don't even know the product) with him and Bobby V. where he talks second, always correcting Bobby on how what they are talking about his team, and not the Mets. Please.....

Bob R.
January 8, 2003
Joe was still a good hitter when he joined the Mets. He sure got stuck managing some bad Mets teams, though. Torre was/is a good guy and I was glad when he won the World Series with the Yankees. But I wish he'd have stopped already!

Chris
April 30, 2003
Unfortunately for the Mets, Joe did his minor-league managing in New York. The players weren't the best but he was even more clueless as to how to use them to get the most out of them. And under him, the Mets lost 4 consecutive double-headers; that is to say they played double-headers 4 straight days and lost all 8 games! I'll never forgive him for that.

Jim Snedeker
October 21, 2003
Now, as we endure the FOX camera making love to Joe's mug with endless close-ups in the post-season dugout, the Yankee fans should pause and remember that Joe cut his managerial teeth in New York with the Mets.

They owe us a debt of gratitude for every win they've ever had, including the World Series, with Joe at the helm.

Jonathan Stern
February 19, 2004
Extremely vinegary sour grapes.

You don't last five seasons managing the Mets unless you know what you're doing. From 1977 to 1981, Torre held on, despite a winning percentage from Hell. Why? He had a team of no-talents playing almost every game like it was the post-season. Those teams were bad, but they had character. They battled. They played hurt. They did NOT earn big money. Most of us remember some of those players with great fondness: Stearns, Maz, Flynn, Swannie, Krane, etc. That so many of those guys became coaches and managers after they retired from playing says quite a few things about Torre's leadership abilities even at that early stage of his second career.

Torre has admitted he wasn't a great manager when he was with the Mets. He was a rookie with no minor league experience, MLB's last player-manager to date. Cashen fired him because he wanted his own man. For his part, Torre was neither upset nor surprised when he was let go.

Then he went to Atlanta and they made the playoffs. Under Bamberger, the Mets finished last again.

I hate the Yanks as much as anyone else. But Torre is one of baseball's all-time greatest managers and personalities, a border-line HOF-er as a player and team leader for the Braves, Cards, and Mets. As for the Piazza-Clemens mixup, what else could he have said? He was trying to win, for himself and for Steinbrenner (oh, what fun). And how does one motivate men who are making $10 million-plus-a-year to bust it day after day? Torre has been doing it routinely for the last eight seasons.

Steven Gallanter
February 27, 2004
Jonathan Stern is mistaken regarding Joe Torre being the last player/manager. Don Kessinger held both positions for the '79 White Sox who were almost as bad as the Mets.

No, Joe Torre wasn't a good manager except for managing spin control when the team was ripped apart in 1977.

Lee Mazzilli's career was derailed and in spite of coming up with Neil Allen, Jeff Reardon and Jesse Orosco contemporaneously the bullpen should have been indicted for arson.

Nicholas Koliarakis
May 22, 2004
Even before he joined the Mets, Joe Torre held a distinct place in their history. As a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, he was the player who hit into the game-ending double play at Shea Stadium that clinched the National League East title for the Mets. That ranks up there with the fact that Dave Johnson made the final out of the '69 World Series and then managed the Mets to a World Series title 17 years later.

George Felonbrenner
May 11, 2005
Wake up Joe, there's a Yankees game going on!

Wow, a Met that goes on to bigger and better things the minute he leaves the Flushing abyss. Thats never happened before!

I liked him a lot, but that changed when he and Metal Plate attacked Piazza. Yeah, blame the victim. Piazza should've just walked off the 92 MPH fast ball the head!

I can't believe he screwed us out of getting Clemens. Wow, talk about bad luck or what.

Jim Snedeker
August 19, 2006
With all of the 1986 20th anniversary hype currently going on, it's good to pause and remember what led up to that--specifically the teams Torre coached in the late 70s/early 80s.

Who remembers "The Come-From-Behind Kids"? That's what these teams became known as. Yeah, they weren't perched atop the division, but they were a lot of fun to watch, especially when they attained a reputation for winning ball games in their final at-bats.

Frank the Met
October 20, 2007
I've waited to state my views on Joe Torre, but now that his tenure with the Yankees is over, here it is. Listening to talk radio and reading all the commentaries in the newspapers, I genuinely feel that I'm virtually alone in my opinion. Nevertheless, I remain an absolutist on this issue, even if I'm outnumbered. Furthermore, I want to state that although I'm a lifelong rabid Yankee-hater, I don't dislike Joe Torre, nor do I blame him for the last place finishes he compiled as Met manager.

And that's exactly my point. I cannot fathom, for the life of me, all this praise for Joe because of all his success as Yankee manager. He is neither to blame for the Met failures, nor is he to credit for Yankee successes. It's about the players, plain and simple. A manager wins with good players and loses with bad players (and is mediocre with mediocre players.) Am I the only one who sees the obvious?

Casey Stengel won about a hundred pennants with the Yanks, came to the Mets and lost 120 games. Am I crazy? I keep hearing that it's not Joe's fault that the Yanks have gotten knocked out of the playoffs in recent years, because they no longer have the pitching they had in the late 90's. I agree with that. But you can't have it both ways. If Joe doesn't get the blame now, he shouldn't get the credit back then, when he had the pitching.

Joe Torre was a great hitter in his days as a player. But the notion that he should be some kind of icon and a Hall of Famer (as a manager) is utterly ridiculous. He is neither a great nor a terrible manager. He was, like every manager in baseball history, as good as his players. Nothing more.

Coping-with-Life.com
October 21, 2007
Joe Torre was a great Mets manager. He had the worst team ever assembled--even worse than the 1962 Mets. Yet, he never lost 100 games -- that was an accomplishment. If he had stuck around, the late 1980s Mets would have resembled the late 1990s Yankees.

Dan Gurney
November 21, 2007
My main memories of Torre is what the Shea Stadium sign man (Karl Ehmer?) used to hold up when Torre got a hit. "The Godfather has spoken" or "Torre Torre Hallejuah". His wife at the time was pretty nice looking (they are divorced and he has remarried). Torre has a certain amount of hypocrisy in the Clemens-Piazza beanball incident but lets face it, a manager almost has to protect his players. He had a lot of bad luck in missing the playoffs his first 35 years and a lot of good luck his last 12. But sometimes you make your own luck and Torre was smart enough to know which peope to butter up (former writer Arthur Richman for one).

Anthony R
July 29, 2010
If the Mets continue their yearly free-fall...do not be suprised to see Joe Torre The Sequel the next two seasons. He would love to get back at the Yankees by managing the Mets, and giving them the back page for a little while. The Wilpons need positive press, and Joe would give it to them. The Yankees will soon lose the "core" to age, and that is when we can possibly rise up to where we were in the 80s. A National League town.

Richard L. Weinberg
September 27, 2022
Managed the Mets for 5 unsuccessful seasons (1977-1981), when the team had trouble drawing 10,000 fans on a Sunday afternoon. Was fired after the 1981 season, just before the amazing crop of talent the Mets were developing in the minors were ready for the Big Time. I often wonder what would have happened if he was in charge of those talent rich teams the Mets had starting in 1984. Would he have been able to manage more than the 1 World Championship won by Davey Johnson? The drugs and alcohol abuse of those Met teams was legendary, and I doubt Torre would have been as permissive. Anyway Torre is in the Hall Of Fame, and Davey Johnson is not, strictly because the way those Met teams of the late 1980's underachieved. Maybe Torre would have produced the dynasty that never was.








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