Originally posted by Double-J: If the responsibility to motivate and manage a team is supposed to come from the veteran players, why bother having a manager at all? The way you've described the situation, there is no need for coaching, it should be the guys picking themselves up from the bootstraps. While I think that is necessary, it is the managers responsibility to prepare these guys, just like a general must have his troops ready to take the field.
Sorry, I don't buy the fact that the manager is totally absolved from his team coming it to the playoffs DOA. Torre was a great manager, one of the greatest, but it is about that time that someone more active and less passive steps into the job.
My description in no way even implies that there is no need for coaching. So please don't put words in my mouth, you're not debating politics with some lib over in GENERAL :p
Yes a manager needs to get his team ready. And a manager needs to be a motivator at times. But I look at that Yankee bench and see a bunch of guys just sitting there watching a ballgame. Where were the Bernies and the Jeters talking to the other players trying to motivate them? You loo at the Mets dugout and all you see are the Julio Francos and the Carlos Delgados talking and motivating the other players. That's what I was talking about JJ.
One thing that Torre maybe should have done was to go out in that 3rd or 4th game and argue with an ump and make a scene and get booted which mayh have incited the rest of the team to step up a bit and get excited.
There was absolutely no excitment whatsoever on that Yankee bench.
Perhaps Torre was not as animated as he should have been. Perhaps he should have been a little more aggresive in his managing style as far as manufacturing runs and trying to make things happen on the bases. But there is no way that you can convince me that he was to blame and that he should be fired. No way.
Spolied, spoiled, spoiled. That's what you are! :p
Don Cardi
Don Cardi
Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.
