Cardinals Are Proving Torre Makes All the Right Moves

Joe Torre, former commentator and current communicator, drew on a big, fat cigar and ran through his list of options. Today, the St. Louis Cardinal manager was dealing with his team’s hitting slump.

In four previous games, the Cardinals had managed four runs. The offense was slipping into recession.

Who needed a day off? Who could give them a lift? Who needed to start hitting?

Torre, who spent six years as an Angel broadcaster, showed not the slightest bit of concern. He went through it all as if it were a pregame show.

“I’m probably more confident now as a manager,” Torre said. “You go in and you have an idea what you want to do. But the players have to do it on the field. The only thing a manager can do is try to make sense.”

Sense? This from a man who gave up a cushy broadcasting job to return to that 24-hour-a-day headache called managing?

But Torre has made nothing but sense since taking over the Cardinals.

Torre, who previously managed the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves, stopped talking about the Angels and started talking to the Cardinal players nearly two years ago. And they have listened.

In that time, he has helped rejuvenate a franchise that won three pennants during the 1980s, but had slipped to last place in 1990.

The Cardinals finished second a year ago and are lurking in the background this season. The success has been enough that Torre doesn’t miss the microphone all that much.

“There are some days when we leave the bases loaded that I wish I was back in the broadcasting booth,” Torre said. “But those days are rare. I’m enjoying what I’m doing. It has been very stimulating for me.”

As well as for the Cardinals.

In May, they surged into first place and held on to it for 10 days. A slump dropped them behind the Pittsburgh Pirates, but they are hanging around.

As of Friday, the Cardinals were in third, 3 1/2 games out of first.

The pitching has been good and the defense solid. The hitting has been spotty, which is why the Cardinals’ record Friday was 42-42.

But in the NL East this year, mediocre might be enough.

“I’d say if you’re close to 90 wins, you’re running off somewhere,” Torre said. “That’s the number I picked for us before the season.”

Some might have called him overly optimistic, but not his players. They are sold on whatever he has to say.

After all, a year ago, Torre walked into spring training and boldly announced that the goal was to win the division, adding that anyone who didn’t believe that didn’t belong on the team.

More than a few Cardinals scoffed. They remembered the pitiful 1990 season, when they had won only 70 games and finished 25 games out of first.

“I think a few people thought he was crazy,” pitcher Joe Magrane said. “It turned out he believed in this club more than we did at the time.”

The Cardinals didn’t win the division, but chased the Pirates through much of the season. They were only four games out of first in late August and finished 84-78.

“Joe has a way of instilling confidence in you,” pitcher Bob Tewksbury said. “He tells it like it is and that openness makes you feel more comfortable.”

Tewksbury, 32-34 lifetime before this season, is 9-3 with a 1.87 earned-run average. He credits much of his success to the counseling of Torre.

Others have been won over by his actions.

Relief pitcher Todd Worrell, who missed the last two seasons because an elbow injury, said Torre supported him when he wanted to test his arm last September.

“The Cardinals didn’t want me to risk it,” Worrell said. “Joe handled it very diplomatically and they let me pitch. It’s nice to have a manager who will back you up.”

Worrell pitched three games at Louisville, the team’s triple-A team, last September. He is back with the Cardinals this season.

“Joe doesn’t shoot with a crooked stick,” General Manager Dal Maxvill said. “When he tells a player something, that’s the way it is. Players will work their butts off for a guy like that.”

Which is exactly what Maxvill wanted when he offered Torre the job in August of 1990.

Whitey Herzog, who had led the Cardinals to three pennants and one World Series championship, resigned during the season, leaving the team in turmoil. Maxvill knew there were more shake-ups to come.

Willie McGee was traded during the 1990 season--while he was leading the league in hitting. Vince Coleman and Terry Pendleton left after the season via free agency.

“It took a little courage on Joe’s part to take the job,” Maxvill said. “He knew our situation when we hired him. He knew we were going to be letting some guys go.”

What was left was a young team with a few veterans thrown in. Maxvill wanted a good communicator to handle the mix.

He turned to a guy who had been getting his point across to the viewers at home. Heck, anyone who could explain the Angels had to have good communication skills.

“There were times when Whitey wanted to say something to you, he’d do it through the newspapers,” Magrane said. “If Joe has something to say to you, he does it face-to-face.”

Torre wasn’t looking for the job when it came his way.

He had managed the Mets from 1977-81, never winning more than 67 games. He had better success in Atlanta, where he managed from 1982-84.

The Braves won the West Division in 1982 and second the next two seasons.

Torre was fired after the 1984 season and became an announcer for the Angels the following year.

“The first couple of years, I thought I would be right back managing,” Torre said. “But once it got to three or four years, I didn’t think it was going to happen. The more I was in broadcasting, the better I got at it. After a few years, I realized I was more comfortable broadcasting then managing.”

Then the right offer came along.

“I was interviewed by teams while I was broadcasting, but nothing seriously” Torre said. “I just felt that, instead of interviewing me, they should already know my capabilities.”

Maxvill did. He had played with Torre from in St. Louis from 1969-72 and coached under him in New York and Atlanta.

“He was head and shoulders above everyone else,” Maxvill said.

Torre, who hit .297 during at 17-year career with the Braves, Cardinals and Mets, has changed some as a manager. He modified his views during his years as an announcer, as he watched how others handled the job.

Time spent with Gene Mauch, Tony LaRussa and Sparky Anderson, among others, was time well spent.

Now his rules are few, but must be followed. He insists on only one thing: play hard.

“In Atlanta, I had all these rules--you couldn’t play golf, you couldn’t go swimming,” Torre said. “You can’t baby sit them. I told them, ‘You’re adults, do what you want. But I want to see it on the field.’

“I was warned about all the horror stories about managing today. That the players are different. They’re not.”

Torre was convinced of that after a fight between teammates Pedro Guerrero and Worrell early this season.

Guerrero had brought Chicago Cub outfielder Sammy Sosa, a friend, into the Cardinal clubhouse. Some of the players viewed this as too much fraternizing and words were exchanged.

Worrell and Guerrero then had to be separated.

Torre liked it.

“I found out that emotion is carried into the clubhouse, which I like,” Torre said. “People kept saying to me that players didn’t care anymore. I found out that wasn’t true. At least with this group of guys.”

That group lumbers on.

The hitting is still day-to-day and whether the pitching will hold up is debatable. The Cardinals also have too many outfielders and too few power hitters. They have gone through five second basemen because of injuries and they are still a young team.

But Torre is loving every minute of it, headaches and all.

“When this job opened up, (former Pittsburgh general manager) Joe Brown asked me if I was going to be considered for it,” Torre said. “I told him I thought so, but I was already comfortable with what I was doing.

“He said, ‘How old are you?’ I said, ‘Fifty.’ He said, ‘You’re too young to be comfortable.’ ”

And that makes perfect sense to Torre.