Torre

Thinking about this for a few days.

And I'm late in the game, and I want to hear back, but:

There was no way this ended well.

Absent Joe Torre's Yankees winning a World Series, then carrying Torre off the field and into retirement, this was going to end badly.

As it always does in baseball.

Other sports are sometimes immune to this.

Basketball, with Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, and even Phil Jackson zooming off on his motorcycle, give us the storybook.

College basketball. John Wooden. Al McGuire.

Pro football. Vince Lombardi. End of story. (Quick story: Astro-Girl hadn't heard of Vince Lombardi until I told her. But she had heard of the Lombardi Trophy. So when I said, "Vince Lombardi," her response was, "Lombardi Trophy Vince Lombardi?" Yes, dear, the man whose name is affixed to the second-most prestigious team trophy in sports, right after Lord Stanley's Cup. That Vince Lombardi.)

Some attempted comebacks, didn't work out. Lombardi died coaching a Redskins team that George Allen would take to the Super Bowl the following year. Bill Russell: Seattle, Sacramento. Not so much. How Russell was such an executioner on the basketball court and so lazy everywhere else--bench coaching, announcing, relating to the smallest degree to a fan base that would have worshiped him, had he let them--remains a mystery for the ages.

But all of the above had their moments: I win, I'm out.

Not so much in baseball. Has anyone noticed?

Tally up the glorious exits of baseball managers--that is, managers in the oldest professional team sport in America--and how many graceful exits do you find?

Two.

Miller Huggins was the skipper of Murderer's Row (Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, Meusel), a hard-hitting team whose power hid a terrific defense (Gehrig again, plus Earle Combs in center, Mark Keonig at short and Joe Dugan at third, and don't forget the Babe, who had a pitcher's rifle arm in right), a top-flight rotation (Hoyt, Pennock, Shocker, Shawkey) and probably the first legitimate closer (Wilcey Moore).

When it occurred to the Yankees to place monuments in centerfield (on the playing field, if you're scoring at home), to commemorate the greatest among them, three monuments were erected.

Miller Huggins was the name on one monument. Next to two guys named Ruth and Gehrig.

So . . . how did Huggins escape an inglorious cleaning-out-of-the-desk?

Easy.

He died on the job.

And Connie Mack?

He quit the Philadelphia Athletics when he decided to.

And why?

Ummmm . . . he owned the team.

For everyone else, things have ended badly.

Just to deal with the most famous Yankee managers:

Joe McCarthy: Four rings in a row. Fired, it was said, over a drunken tirade in a hotel.

Casey Stengel: ten pennants in twelve years, seven rings. He lost the seventh game of the 1960 World Series to Pittsburgh by a single run, and was fired.

Yogi Berra: lost the 1964 World Series, seventh game score: 7-5.

And everyone knows about Billy Martin, Lou Piniella, Buck Showalter.

The Yankees wanted to make a change.

God help them if Donnie or Girardi or Tony isn't the fit.

But it was bound to end ugly.

Because it always does.