Torre Says He Has No Regrets About Book

Jim Baumbach - Newsday

Joe Torre, legendary Yankees manager turned controversial author? That's not how he sees it.

On the day "The Yankee Years" officially hit the shelves, Torre made his best attempt at damage control, insisting he did not break the unwritten clubhouse code that stipulates what happens in here, stays in here.

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Before a signing yesterday at a Manhattan bookstore, Torre stressed he was heavily involved in the book even though it is written in the voice of his co-author, Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, complemented throughout with quotes from Torre.

Torre, who led the Yankees for 12 years, said he has read "every word of the book numerous times" and regrets nothing in it. Given a chance to do it all over again, he said, "I would write the same things."

"What I wrote about individual players, depending on who they were, in some instances I wanted to humanize them more than they were," Torre said, "as opposed to thinking they were one player making too much money or a lot of money and you don't get an idea of what their heartbeat is. That's why I talked about certain things in and around the clubhouse."

The book includes frank revelations about Torre's time with the Yankees, from admitting his deteriorating relationship with general manager Brian Cashman over the final seasons to Alex Rodriguez being called "A-Fraud" by teammates.

"I don't think I violated anything, at least that was my intention," Torre said. "Being frank, I'd like to think that's what I'm about."

Torre said Verducci, a former Newsday sports reporter, suggested the idea for the book during spring training 2007. Torre said they started work on it throughout that season, his last with the Yankees.

"When I agreed to do this book a couple of years ago, I had no idea where I would be at the time it was going to come out," Torre said. "I just wanted to write about my time with the Yankees."

Torre said he did not give players a heads-up before the book was released, but he insisted that any 2007 Yankee knew he was involved in a book project. "We weren't hiding out anywhere," he said. "It was right there and everyone pretty much knew what we were doing."

Torre said he was disappointed by the initial negative reaction to the book, stressing that his intentions were not to do a tell-all, rather "to inform people, tell them something they don't know without violating anything. That's basically the rules I took in there for myself."

If the fallout means there won't be a Joe Torre day at Yankee Stadium in the next decade, he said he will be disappointed. But in typical Torre fashion, he did not seem overly concerned about something out of his control.

"I can't help how other people look to the book," Torre said. "I know what I wanted the book to be and I'm pretty comfortable with where it ended up. It would be unfortunate. I would feel bad about that. But I really can't do anything about that."

Although Torre did not back down from anything in the book, he tried to put Rodriguez's A-Fraud nickname in a positive light. As he did Friday night in his interview with Larry King on CNN, Torre insisted the nickname was tongue in cheek.

"You never did any of that stuff behind his back," Torre said, although on page 245 it says people called A-Rod that "behind his back."

Torre yesterday reiterated that his relationship with Cashman "changed somewhat" the last few years. He also did not back down from the book's assertion that team president Randy Levine had been after him since Torre told Levine to shut up several years ago.

But as he did so many times as Yankees manager, Torre laughed in the face of controversy. "It's probably not the best idea to tell the president of the ballclub to shut up," he said as he walked away to sign books for fans. "It's probably something I would advise you not to do."

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