The yankee years by Joe Torre & Tom Verducci

Author:Joe Torre & Tom Verducci [Joe Torre & Tom Verducci]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographie, Sports
ISBN: 9780767930420
Published: 2010-02-02T21:38:14+00:00

9.

Marching to

Different Drumbeats

Joe Torre called Bernie Williams and Kenny Lofton into his office one day in the Yankees’ 2004 spring training camp and closed the door. The two veterans, both competing for the centerfield job, sat in upholstered chairs across from Torre, with the manager’s desk between them and Torre

“Guys,” Torre said, “we’ve got a dilemma here.”

The Yankees had signed Lofton that winter to a two-year, $6.2 million deal, essentially because they didn’t trust Williams any more to be their everyday center fielder. Williams had batted .263 in a season in which he had missed 42 games after knee surgery. The Yankees’ front office suspected that an aging Williams should be transitioned to life as a designated hitter, an idea Torre wasn’t ready to endorse completely.

The Yankees had just watched Juan Pierre and Luis Castillo help the Marlins beat them in the 2003 World Series by giving Florida speed at the top of the lineup, and Lofton was the Yankees’ attempt at a copycat move. It was a poor attempt. The signing was fraught with misguided thinking. For one, Lofton, then 36, was older than Williams, 35, and there was no evidence that he was an upgrade on Williams. Even in an injury-shortened season, Williams hit more home runs, drove in more runs and posted a better on-base percentage in 2003 than Lofton. Moreover, Lofton had turned into a baseball transient, unable to stay rooted with any team in the decline of his career and unwilling to concede he was no longer an everyday player. In 27 months he was the property of six teams, moving from the Indians to the White Sox to the Giants to the Pirates to the Cubs to the Yankees.

Lofton tried to be somewhat diplomatic and obligatory on a conference call with reporters to announce his signing. “If they want me to park cars,” he said, “I’ll do that.” But Lofton wasn’t about to start doing any grunt work in his baseball career. He thought of himself as a proud, All-Star-caliber center fielder and nothing else short of that. When Lofton was asked on the conference call about the possibility of replacing Williams, a Yankee icon, in center field, he replied, “They said they want me to play center field. I am a center fielder and they know that.”

That was true enough, but was Lofton a better center fielder than Williams? Maybe, but maybe not. What was true was that the Yankees had signed an older player with a checkered reputation who was not clearly better than Williams.

Before the signing was announced, Torre called up Williams and told him, “We’re getting Kenny Lofton. That doesn’t mean anything is set for center field. We’re going to start the season with the best center fielder, whoever that is.”

It was a rotten scenario sure to displease both of them. Lofton, who never had accepted being a role player in his career, thought he was being signed to play center field, when actually Torre considered him to be coming to camp to compete for the job.

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