Joe Torre was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY on July 27, 2014 and the New York Yankees retired his Number 6 at a ceremony at Yankee Stadium the following month. Joe is currently a consultant to Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred. Prior to his current role, he served as the Chief Baseball Officer for Major League Baseball. In this capacity, he was responsible for overseeing several areas that included Major League Operations, On-Field Operations, On-Field Discipline and Umpiring. He served as the Office of the Commissioner’s primary liaison to the general managers and field managers of the 30 Major League Clubs regarding all baseball and on-field matters.
Bobby Valentine was born and raised in Stamford, the son of Joseph and Grace. Bobby attended Ryle Elementary, Cloonan Middle School, and Rippowam High School, where he was elected student body president and became the only three-time All-State football player in Connecticut history. Bobby received a scholarship to the University of Southern California and was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1968. After 10 seasons as a professional baseball player, Bobby made his major league managerial debut in 1985 with the Texas Rangers. He was the American League Manager of the Year in 1986 and went onto become the winningest manager in Rangers history. Bobby began managing the New York Mets in 1996 and led the team to back-to-back postseasons, including a 2000 World Series appearance. He also won the 2005 Japan Series Championship while managing the Chiba Lotte Marines.
Moderator Tom Verducci is an analyst and reporter for FOX Sports’ Major League Baseball coverage. Joining the network in 2012, Verducci has been a reporter for the MLB Postseason since 2016.
PRESENTED BY
SPEAKERS
Joe Torre
Special Assistant to the Commissioner
Major League Baseball
Bobby Valentine
Former Major League Baseball Manager; Candidate for Mayor of Stamford, Connecticut; Inventor of the Wrap
MODERATOR
Tom Verducci
MLB Analyst & Reporter
FOX Sports
TIMESTAMPS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Tom Verducci: (00:08)
So anybody that's city field this past weekend?
Bobby Valentine: (00:12)
Woo.
Tom Verducci: (00:13)
Yeah. Talk about how baseball explains New York. That was the cliff notes version on Saturday night, what a moving ceremony on the 20th anniversary of 9 11. You had the Yankees and the Mets standing shoulder to shoulder, not on separate foul lines but interspersed together, unity, solidarity, very moving. The next night, they're at each other's throats because somebody whistled. That's New York, isn't it?
Joe Torre: (00:41)
Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I guess it is. I think everybody really has an open sore because of what happened with Houston a few years ago. And the whistling isn't against the rules based on the fact that they didn't use technology to get information, they were pretty much calling the pitches because what he was doing or what he wasn't doing, Andy Pettitte went through that in game six in the world series in 01 where the diamond backs just beat us up and he was tipping his pitches. So, I mean, that's not illegal to be able to communicate that.
Tom Verducci: (01:28)
Let's talk about the ceremony I mentioned Saturday night, obviously the memories, emotions had to come back to both of you, so involved with the way baseball helped in its own small way for this city, for this country to recover from the nine 11 attacks. Bobby, when you saw the ceremony on the field, what were the strongest emotions and memories that came back to you?
Bobby Valentine: (01:53)
Well, Stanley with Joe on the sideline, watching the men in uniform, hearing the bagpipes walk across the field and the sound of a funeral for all intents and purposes, just brought me back 20 years ago to the funerals that we attended, to the people who were wounded so drastically from those horrific attacks, that we were both shaken, we were touched, and we were moved by the idea that we should never forget.
Tom Verducci: (02:30)
Well, you told me a great story, I had not heard this before. I remember watching Bobby during the national anthem being played September 21, the first game in New York after the attacks, the Mets are playing the Braves. And you guys remember, we weren't sure whether we should be playing baseball at that point. And the national anthem is being played and I see Bobby Valentine with his shoulders back, his chin up, he's smiling, proud. Tell me the story about how you decided to really strike that obvious pose.
Bobby Valentine: (03:06)
Well, if you go back 20 years, we could all get that feeling of fear that we had in our hearts and our minds. We were attacked, we had never experienced before and there was confusion. And the confusion was separated from the fear when I got the message from our commander in chief, who said, "Hey, the bad guys are going to be watching. Make sure when you play this first game in New York city, that they don't see on your knees, they see you standing tall." And even though I was confused a bit and very fearful because we didn't know if it was the biggest bulls-eye that had ever been created by man. We didn't know if there was going to be another attack and we decided to put 40,000 people in a stadium to make it easy for the bad guys. And during the national anthem when I knew we would be on television, and maybe that dude in a cave somewhere across the world was looking, I wanted him to see me standing tall and not crying during our national anthem. And it was a hard thing to do, I'll guarantee you that.
Tom Verducci: (04:22)
Joe, what is it about baseball that people kind of sought inspiration from? Or even if it was comfort at that time? Why baseball?
Joe Torre: (04:33)
Well, what's interesting when it happened that morning, I was home, we had been rained out the night before, Roger Clemens was scheduled to pitch against his former team, the Red Sox, he was going for his 20th win. And I had to be at the charity lunch in the next afternoon, so I didn't even have the TV on up in the bedroom, but I was milling around getting my clothes together and I got a phone call from the car service that was going to pick me up. And they said, "I guess it's canceled." And I said, "What are you talking about?" And I turned on the TV and I saw what all of us were watching. And my mind right away went to my daughter who was five years old, and I know she was down with my wife and I wanted to make sure that she wasn't watching what I was seeing on TV. I went downstairs, my wife was handling that situation.
Joe Torre: (05:30)
It was frightening, as Bobby said. I mean, it scares you because all these attacks always happened on somebody else's turf. And here we are in New York city and it was scary, and I got to be honest and to your question, Tommy, baseball all of a sudden wasn't on my mind, it was what's happening and what do we do? And fast forward a little bit when they decided that baseball was going to resume the following Monday, on a Saturday, because we were home, Bobby's club was on the road at the time it happened. And we went with about four vans to Manhattan, we came here to the Javits Center where it was the staging area for all those first responders, firefighters that came from different parts of the country. That's where they were sleeping and eating and doing what they can, hopefully there was going to be a recovery, but obviously we didn't have any of that.
Joe Torre: (06:44)
And then from there we went to St. Francis hospital, and the sad part about it, there were no victims there, there was some firefighters who were dealing with smoke inhalation. Then we went to the armory, and I was a little hesitant about, going in there because we had a lot of players had gone home, they had got in a car and just started driving, and we went into the armory once somebody checked that it's okay for us to go in because the families were there waiting for DNA results about their loved ones. And I thought it was a very personal thing to intrude upon. But we went in and we sort of stayed around the perimeter of everybody gathered because there were low partitions that separated all the groups. And this woman, we were waved over to this one family and we walked in and Bernie Williams was with me and he goes up to the woman, he says, "I don't know what to say to you," he says, "But you look like you need a hug."
Joe Torre: (08:01)
And with that, he gave her a big hug and it sort of opened the flood gates because other families would come toward us with photos of their lost relatives, wearing Yankee garb, caps or jerseys and jackets and just talking about what big fans they were. And it was really at that point, you asked earlier in the week obviously baseball, it was a game we played. And all of a sudden at that point, I realized that we had something more important to do, and that's try to get in the way of these people's grief that they were dealing with and baseball was our vehicle.
Joe Torre: (08:57)
And the team got together in Chicago, we were going to play the White Sox, that was our first game on a Tuesday because we didn't play on Monday. And I told them, I said, "The NY on our caps guys, it represents New York. Not only the Yankees, but the city of New York." And like Bobby's team, everybody was so determined and dug in. And I think if you're Yankee fans and I was a member of the Yankees, people either love you or hate you, there was no middle ground there at all, okay? And when we went out there in Comiskey park, there were signs, we love New York, we love you and we love you, and it was so unlike going on a road trip normally with the Yankee. So you realize that it was our job as baseball people to try to distract. It's a weak word, distract, but just get in the way of their grief.
Bobby Valentine: (10:07)
And Tom, Joe talks about loving and hating the Yankees. Well, I grew up a Yankee fan, and just because God has a sense of humor I got to play for and then coach and manage the Mets. When I first got to the Mets, Joe was the manager and I really loved him, and then he released me, and then emotion changed. And then we got to do battle from 1996 through 2002. And for whatever it's worth, last night concluded a three-day game set in this subway series. Well, when we first had to understand the undertaking of the Yankees and the Mets playing during the season, and they had us do it six times, three in one stadium and three in the others. And when we played against each other, we would have police motorcade escorts with the guys in uniform, in a bus from our stadium to their stadium or their stadium to our stadium, and check it out during rush hour they closed the highways down. So it was just our buses and the motorcade going down the major deacon and crossing over the Williamsburg bridge.
Bobby Valentine: (11:42)
So it was a crazy situation that we lived through. And by the time 2000 came around and we had played these four years of inner league series games, we said to each other, I remember Joe coming over to me and said, "We got to stop doing this during the season." And I said, "Yeah, maybe we should start doing it after the season." And God was looking down and we got to play a world series against each other in 2000.
Joe Torre: (12:14)
Let me just give you a second here at Tommy. We used to play spring training and in the spring training, the Yankees would play the Mets.
Bobby Valentine: (12:24)
The mayor's trophy game.
Joe Torre: (12:26)
And I know, because I was on both sides, I managed the Mets for a while when we were playing the Yankees in a game, and you had to win, you had to beat the Yankees or you had to beat the Mets. And I remember I was with the Mets, we were playing at the Yankee stadium, Billy Martin was managing the Yankees and as the tie game, okay? All of a sudden the baseball comes over into our dugout, and it rolled toward me, I looked at it and Billy Martin had sent me a note on a baseball. And he said, "Who's going to squeeze? You or me?" Who's going to end this game basically.
Joe Torre: (13:12)
And then when I was managing the Yankees, the first year in 96, we finished spring training with three games against the Mets before we went to Cleveland to opened the season. And George Steinbrenner comes in my office and he says to me, "You got to beat these guys. You got to beat these guys." Well, it doesn't mean anything, it's spring training. And so he says, "You got to beat these guys." I said, "Let me ask you something, George." Now I'm just trying to lighten the mood here. I said, "If you had a choice of beating the Mets two out of three, or beating Cleveland two out of the three, which one would you choose?" George's answer was, "Don't ask me that question."
Joe Torre: (13:57)
So it tells you how important it was against each team. And then we did play in the world series in 2000 and we lose the first game at Shea stadium. George Steinbrenner had all our furniture from Yankee stadium clubhouse moved in to Shea stadium clubhouse to make us feel at home because he saw too many Met logos in our clubhouse. This is for real guys.
Tom Verducci: (14:26)
Well, speaking of George Steinbrenner, your former boss, he used to talk about how he wanted his teams to really represent New York. In New York, he used to say, "You have to fight to get a cab, you have to fight to get a seat on the subway, you have to fight to get space on the sidewalk to walk." So he wanted the Yankees to have that same mindset. So as a manager, did you find that there are some players who he might go, "I don't know if he can play in New York." Is there something too that it takes something a little bit different to play and succeed in New York?
Joe Torre: (15:01)
Yeah, I think there are players, first of all I think new Yorkers realize that you have to have thick skin. And some players don't handle criticism very well. I mean, none of us like it, but you have to understand that it goes with it, this is part of the deal you make. And there are players that you could see weren't the same players that when they played in New York as when they were playing with their previous clubs somewhere else. And again, you don't want to name those players, but they just weren't as comfortable, they were aware. And the biggest mistake you make is making sure, and at that time there were newspapers, that you read all the newspapers and listened to all the radio shows that are telling you how good you are, how bad you were. And if you do that, then you're hooked, you're stuck.
Bobby Valentine: (16:09)
And you're going to have the pleasure to listen to Steve Cohen soon here in this conference, who now owns the New York Mets talking about owners. I don't think he's going to talk about the Mets, he's probably going to talk about how you could be like him when you all grow up. But when I got hired by his predecessor, Fred Wilpon, the one thing that Fred wanted me to do was get the back pages away from the New York Mets. It wasn't about winning the world series. I mean, from the New York Yankees, it was about getting the back pages away from the New York Yankees. So it's all an interesting, crazy world that we live in.
Joe Torre: (16:51)
Aren't you happy you opened this can of worms?
Tom Verducci: (16:53)
It's all the media's fault anyway. When in doubt, just blame the media. But didn't you say when you were hired by the Yankees that you are not going to read the newspapers?
Joe Torre: (17:01)
I did.
Tom Verducci: (17:02)
And you really were able to do that, just shut out all that noise?
Joe Torre: (17:06)
Let's admit it. I was living in Cincinnati at the time, and the reason I was fired the third time.
Bobby Valentine: (17:13)
Oh, I know that feeling.
Joe Torre: (17:14)
Right. I was fired by the St. Louis Cardinals, and I moved to Cincinnati because my wife was pregnant with our daughter and my wife, Allie is from Cincinnati so I thought, let her be surrounded while she's pregnant and let her be surrounded by family when I was out looking for a job. And the first word I got when my name came up as the possible manager to take Buck Showalter's place was "Clueless Joe," that was the headline in the paper, you want a headline, take it. It was clueless Joe. So, the only thing that came to my mind is all well and good, it's all going to come down to how we do. I mean, of course I'd been around long enough, when you get fired three times, I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen to you.
Bobby Valentine: (18:09)
You get fired again.
Joe Torre: (18:09)
You get fired. And I had a special group, there was no question about it, players that just were so resilient and very determined.
Tom Verducci: (18:24)
How about you, Bobby? Did you pay attention to?
Bobby Valentine: (18:26)
I read every newspaper, of course I did. What are you kidding me? Yeah, every one and wanting to respond to every guy, when you came in after writing a bad article, I wanted to make sure that I responded to you.
Tom Verducci: (18:37)
So you did.
Bobby Valentine: (18:37)
Actually Jay Horowitz, our PR director who is spectacular during my tenure with the New York Mets, would give me all of the good clips when I got to the office and made sure that I read them. And then after I read all the good clips, he'd say, "Oh, and by the way, clappage killed you this morning in the post." Or "Verducci really got you in the times." And so I wouldn't read those articles to tell you the truth.
Tom Verducci: (19:07)
Joe, you've had an incredible baseball career in so many different capacities, most recently with major league baseball. The only job you haven't had is commissioner, but I'm going to make you a virtual commissioner because there's a lot of things we all want to see baseball improve upon. So if I could make you commissioner, what do you think maybe the one or two things that you would like to change to have this game be as good as it can be?
Joe Torre: (19:35)
Well, first off the talent out there on the field now is amazing. I mean, these kids, we didn't have any weight training until the middle seventies. I mean, spring training, you used to come down as a player and run until you threw up. I mean, that's how you got in shape. And all of a sudden the players started paying attention to their conditioning, obviously during and even off season. But to me, I think what's missing, and I always try to restrain myself because I'm 81 years old and...
Bobby Valentine: (20:14)
And doesn't he look great?
Joe Torre: (20:15)
Don't do that.
Bobby Valentine: (20:16)
81 years old.
Joe Torre: (20:23)
And... Now what was I saying?
Bobby Valentine: (20:25)
I'm sorry, you were saying about getting in shape. You're the commissioner for the day, you're the commissioner. You've got to change one thing.
Joe Torre: (20:31)
No. I say I'm 81 years old, and I think I've got to restrain myself because I'm looking at it from my perspective. But the game of baseball is so much more than hitting home runs, even though we all love it when it's for your team, but there's more excitement that should be had during the course of the game on the field. And to me, I don't know how you change it Tommy. You've got teams that are teaching things as far as hitting balls out of the ballpark, I think a big part of it is because there's an incentive for players to do this, because they go to arbitration and they get paid because of their statistics. I think we got to find a way to incentivize team play and doing little things in baseball which really contribute to the teams that win because they have to make sure they do little things like moving runners, being able to put the ball in play, different things, and it's boring when you talk about it.
Joe Torre: (21:55)
But trust me, if you're sitting in the dugout with a man at third base and less than two out, you want contact, you want a chance to score a run. And that's really team the team on how you proceed and try to win a ball game. To me, I think we need to make sure that the game is what we're trying to fix and have the players' association and the owners be able to keep that in mind when they negotiate contracts, what's best for the game. And I think we're seeing this, and I'm not a political person other than wearing a Bobby Famayer pin here, everybody's trying to win the day and get the best of somebody instead of trying to do what's best for all of us. And as I say, I'm an old fuddy duddy, but I like the fact that baseball, when you can enjoy defensive plays and base stealing and running first to third, and the fact that you don't have to be big and strong to be able to play our game, I think is important to really have them be a part of successes in our games.
Tom Verducci: (23:33)
Well, I think everybody in this room realizes the world just keeps moving faster and faster, right? I think Bobby cut three Bitcoin deals just while we were waiting to come on stage up here. So Bobby, my question be about baseball, does it succeed because maybe it's a respite from how hurried we are and short attention spans, or will it only succeed if it quickens up its own pace to kind of match the pace of our society?
Bobby Valentine: (23:59)
Interesting. See, I think that essence of baseball that Joe was talking about gets back to that communication between people who are watching the game, and a lot of times we talked about it being the father and the son, the mother and the daughter, the father and the daughter, who would go to a game and share the experience. Part of the experience in our country of watching baseball was the time lapse that you had in between plays for the father and the son, the mother and the daughter, the father and the daughter, to talk about what happened or what's going to happen. And most of that conversation dealt with what Joe's speaking of. The bump that might be or might not be, the squeeze that Mike could or shouldn't could, the stolen base, the way the ball was thrown from the outfield. All the nuances of the game have literally been taken out of the game by the idea that you pay for the statistical value of the individual player, if that makes any sense to you.
Bobby Valentine: (25:09)
So the only thing there we're waiting for is how far the guy's going to hit it, or how fast the guy's going to throw it, and there's no conversation about the game during that time. And that's why it seems like it's such a long game because you're just waiting around for the home run or the hundred mile an hour pitch. And I think we need to get that stuff back. One of the things they deal with today, if you watch baseball is shifts. Hey, everyone shifts and the purest say, "Oh, what are those shifts?" They're all based on the analytics of where ball might be hit. I don't think the shifts are going to go away, I think they're part of the game, but I think that they should limit the number of shifts so that the manager now comes back into play, into that discussion of what he should do for this hitter, should he use a shift or not use a shift in the first inning? He might run out of shifts and not have it in a nice inning when he needs it.
Bobby Valentine: (26:07)
And things like that maybe even require three plays to be executed on offense by the offense. Three plays during a game, a bun, a hit run, a stolen base, something like that. And then you could sit around and figure out when the manager does do those plays and when he should have done those plays and talk about it. I think we've taken the conversation out of the game and I think that's really killed the game.
Tom Verducci: (26:36)
I love baseball conversation. One word you'll hear a lot here, and it's an important word, is leadership. It's hard to define, but it's used a lot. Joe, you were just in Cooperstown, New York last week, Derek Jeter inducted into the hall of fame. I never thought of Derek as a vocal leader, but he certainly was, I thought, the leader. And leadership in the way that people look to how you carry yourself, how you respond, especially in times of adversity. You know him as well as anybody, what made Derek Jeter a leader?
Joe Torre: (27:13)
Well, to me, if you're going to be successful, the first thing you need to understand is you have to deal with failure. You got to be able, instead of saying, "I wish that didn't happen," you realize that it's not going to change it, so you got to move on. Derek was not afraid to fail. I mean, that's the one thing. He had a horrible spring that first year in 96, and there was conversation about sending him back to the minor leagues. And when you looked in his eyes every day, he was the same kid out there getting ready to play, and there was something very special about him, so special. I mean again, leaders, we all probably have a different idea on what leadership is, but leadership to me is the ability to listen, and the fact that you lead by example, you don't tell people what to do, you show people how to do it. And it doesn't mean ability wise, it's effort, preparation, and all that.
Joe Torre: (28:24)
Derek Jeter, by probably August of his rookie year, you had the veteran players looking to him to do something special, because he had earned that trust over the first four or five months of the season that these players trusted him. And he never changed, never changed. He showed up for work every day, he didn't always do well, but he showed up there every day. We had opening day in Toronto one time, and he tried to go from first to third, they had a shift on and he was trying to go from first to third, and the catcher came from behind the plate to cover and wind up putting his knee down and tag Derek, he winds up dislocating his shoulder. I went out there with our trainer obviously, and he's laying on his back, he says, " I'll be in there tomorrow, Mr. T." I said, "Yeah, you will, sure you will."
Joe Torre: (29:35)
But that's who he was, that's who he was. He was a leader on field and off the field. And again, he didn't talk a whole lot, I mean, when George named him captain, that was something that he didn't really want because he didn't want the attention, but he certainly never backed off on who he was and showed, right? Again, last week in Cooperstown, his speech was right on, touched on his teammates who he valued so dearly, because if he walked in the dugout and somebody who was supposed to, every day player wouldn't be in the lineup, and he'd say, "What happened to such and such?" And I'd say, "Well, he didn't feel good," or whatever, he'd just gave me that roll his eyes thing and walked down the other end of the dugout. It wasn't his cup of tea.
Tom Verducci: (30:34)
Bobby, you played in Los Angeles, you've managed in Texas, New York, Boston. When I mentioned that word leadership, who are maybe the one or two guys that came to your mind that you saw that quality in?
Bobby Valentine: (30:49)
Well, Derek Jeter. Joe, you said he failed, how come in seven years that we played against each other he never failed playing against the Mets? I can't figure that one out to tell you the truth. I had a leader on my team, his name was Pete O'Brien. It was really interesting thing, I thought of as a captain of a team when I was first managing, I was a young guy, I was 35 years old, 36 years old, 37 years old. And now after the third year managing at my end of the year meetings, I had the meeting with Pete O'Brien, and I said, "Do you have anything else to say about your year and everything that went on?" And he looked at me and he said, "Yeah, I have something to tell you, Bobby, if that's okay." And I said, "What's that?" He says, "You think and talk about winning too much."
Bobby Valentine: (31:37)
And I thought, this is the leader of my team, and he just told me that I think about winning too much. I better train this guy and get him out of my clubhouse. Luckily it was at the end of the season and I had a long time to think about that. And after thinking about it, I realized that I was talking and thinking about the end of the game, winning too much, and not concentrating on what happens during the game to get to the win. And so that leader who was a young guy at the time taught me how leaders are supposed to lead, and that's by being part of the process that make things happen properly so you get the results that are needed.
Tom Verducci: (32:27)
That's a great point. And I'll leave you with my own observation because I always looked up, and I'm sure you guys did as well, to Vin Scully, the best in the business who remained the best in the business even into his eighties, just an amazing career as a broadcaster with the LA Dodgers. So I asked Vin Scully one day, "How could you possibly be this good for this long?" And he actually borrowed a line from the actor Lawrence Olivier, and he said, "The humility to prepare and the confidence to pull it off." And I thought about that, it makes perfect sense. The humility to prepare means knowing what you don't know, even when you're as accomplished as Vin Scully, to do the work as if you're trying to establish yourself, even when you already are established. And then the confidence to pull it off is something that obviously comes within all of us. We get confidence from people around us, but if you don't have it internally, that external confidence is not going to resonate.
Tom Verducci: (33:24)
So, that really has stuck with me, I think it's a great lesson if you will, or certainly advice from one of the best in the business. And finally, I wanted to thank these two gentlemen here, because when you do talk about leadership and especially in this great city, they're on the short list, Joe Tory, Bobby Valentine, true leaders. Thank you guys so much, we've enjoyed this.
Joe Torre: (33:47)
Thank you, Tommy.