Yankees’ ‘Mr. T’ took hint from Arnie

NEW YORK. — When the great ones listen, they listen to other great ones.

Consider last winter, when New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, stung by his second World Series loss in three seasons and a deteriorating relationship with George Steinbrenner, was considering retirement. He had one year left on his contract with little more to prove after taking the Yankees to eight straight postseason appearances and winning four World Series.

He was 63, a time when many people consider retiring to enjoy the fruits of their years of labor — such as more time on the golf course.

So when golfing legend Arnold Palmer — on a boat trip in Hawaii with Torre — invited the Yankees manager to play in the tournament Palmer plays host to each March at Bay Hill in Florida, Torre replied, “After this year, I might be able to take you up on that. This could be my last year. I’d be able to retire.”

Palmer replied, “Retire? How old are you?”

Torre told Palmer he was 63, to which Palmer replied, “I’m 74. I’m still competing. What does that have to do with anything?”

When Arnold Palmer scoffs at the notion of retirement while you are on a boat off the coast of Maui in January, the tensions of managing the winningest team in American pro sports history with the most demanding fans and the most overbearing owner in the game all seem to fade away, and you start to think, “Yeah, I’m manager of the New York Yankees. Why the heck should I retire?”

“This wasn’t a casual conversation,” Torre said. “It seemed pretty important to him, and it made me feel good. You see the spirit he has, it gets your attention.”

The talk pushed Torre in a different direction — to think about the possibility of staying in the job instead of biding his time until he could get out. Torre began to put the pain of losing his friend and long-time confidant on the bench, Don Zimmer, to the heavy-handed criticism by Steinbrenner aside and instead think about the rewards of making history in the game he loves every spring his team takes the field.

So Torre was ready to sign a two-year contract extension when he came to spring training in Tampa, Fla., this year, which paved the way for the Yankees to get to where they were last night, in the familiar role of playing the Boston Red Sox in Game1 of the American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium.

Steinbrenner owes Arnold Palmer a lot.

Consider what this season would have been like in New York if it had been Torre’s last. The back page of the tabloids would have filled with sniping between Steinbrenner and Torre, anger from disgruntled Yankees players and speculation about who will be managing this team next year — and the end of a golden era of Yankees baseball, because make no mistake about it, the only thing between the Yankees championships and Yankees chaos is Joe Torre.

Reggie Jackson once declared he was the straw that stirred the drink in New York, but no one can make that claim more than Torre, a New York guy with new-age sensibilities and old-school traditions.

He took a Yankees team that lost Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte and won 101 games. He took in one of the greatest players in the game, Alex Rodriguez, and handled the delicate situation of him moving to a new position at third base and the possible rivalry between Rodriguez and the man who was playing his position on this team, shortstop Derek Jeter. He handled a clubhouse hounded with steroid questions this spring surrounding Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi, and then the loss of Giambi to God only knows what, and then the tension in the final weeks of the season when Kevin Brown broke his hand in a fit of rage in the Yankees clubhouse.

How good is Torre? Mike Mussina would sooner have Christmas dinner with Peter Angelos than offer praise for a manager, but he said continued success of the Yankees is connected to the presence of Torre, through all the turmoil and tumult.

“It all feeds off Joe, the character and approach of this team,” Mussina said.

Jeter is one of the biggest stars in the game, yet he still refers to his manager as “Mister Torre,” or sometimes, “Mr. T.” He understands who stirs the drink.

“We have guys one through nine who can beat you,” Jeter said. “If it’s not Alex one day, it’s Sheffield. If it’s not [Jorge] Posada, it’s Bernie [Williams]. We know we can put together a stream of quality at-bats, and we understand that the game is nine innings … that happens because of Mr. T.”

So as another chapter in the blood feud between the Yankees and Red Sox begins, Joe Torre takes another step toward putting together the most impressive body of work of any manager in modern baseball — not just surviving longer than any Yankees manager under Steinbrenner, but thriving. As it turns out, he was, and is, the perfect man for the job.

“I grew up with the Dodger-Giants series,” he said, referring to when the Dodgers and Giants were also in the city. “I hated the Dodgers even though I lived in Brooklyn, which wasn’t safe to do because I was a Giants fan. It was on 12 months a year and you were arguing with your friends and it was an intensity. Jackie Robinson was traded to the Giants and then quit. All right, that gives you an idea that that’s the last thing he wanted to do.”

A New York manager who can call on a time when the world of baseball revolved around New York. A 2004 manager who can conjure up the feelings in this city when Jackie Robinson was traded nearly 50 years ago.

Arnold Palmer did all of us a favor.