Joe Torre, Lou Piniella face off for what could be last time
After matching baseball wits for two decades, the Dodgers’ Joe Torre and the Chicago Cubs’ Lou Piniella might have managed against each other for the last time Sunday.
Both managers have said they’re undecided about returning next year. Assuming one or both don’t return, and assuming their teams don’t meet in the postseason this year, Sunday’s game at Dodger Stadium marked their last contest.
Before the game, the two formed a mutual admiration society as they recalled careers in which Torre’s teams had a 96-82 edge over Piniella’s teams in regular-season play entering Sunday’s game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
That record doesn’t include the National League division series in 2008, when Torre’s Dodgers swept Piniella’s Cubs in three games.
“I salute his career,” Piniella, 66, said of Torre, who turns 70 next Sunday. “Joe has been a special manager. He’s had a marvelous career.”
The reserved Torre also skippered the New York Yankees while the excitable Piniella was managing the Seattle Mariners and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Before that, Torre managed the St. Louis Cardinals while Piniella was managing the Cincinnati Reds, starting in 1990 when the Reds swept the Oakland Athletics to win the World Series.
Torre also managed the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves, and Piniella — who spent most of his 18-year playing career with the Yankees — also started his managerial years at the helm of the Yankees in 1986.
Torre called Piniella “a good man” who “knows his baseball.”
“I was happy to see him have the success he had in Cincinnati; it’s my wife’s hometown,” Torre said. “And he beat a great Oakland club in ’90.”
Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano, who previously played for Torre with the Yankees, noted that “Joe is the more relaxed one, while Lou is more emotional sometimes. But they have the same emotion; they both want to win.”
In terms of managing against Piniella, Torre said, “The only thing that’s predictable about him is his unpredictability because he manages from his heart and his feel.
“I was kidding with him the other day, I said, ‘The thing about it is you weren’t a very passionate player.’ I many times remember a broken bat after he’d strike out. This game is a part of him.”
Piniella, when asked what he thinks about when managing against Torre, replied, “Nothing special.
“I don’t manage against the other manager; I manage our team,” he said. “If you get caught up trying to manage against the other guy, you’re not going to be too successful.”
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