February 04, 2009
Torre Spinning
Tyler Kepner read The Yankee Years and says Joe Torre is spinning his A-Fraud reference:
Here is the actual passage, as written by Torre and Tom Verducci: "Back in 2004, at first Rodriguez did his best to try to fit into the Yankee culture - his cloying, B-grade actor best. He slathered on the polish. People in the clubhouse, including teammates and support personnel, were calling him 'A-Fraud' behind his back."
Behind his back is the literal opposite of "in front of him." Torre says he read the book numerous times before publication. Surely he is aware of this important difference.
Seems like Joe didn't like the reaction the leaked snippets received.
Posted by David Pinto at
10:57 PM
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this sounds more like Verducci than Torre. And Torre's Bowa story doesn't discredit this either. Just because Bowa said it in front of Arod doesn't mean that it didn't also happen behind his back. Bowa doesn't seem to be clever enough to come up with A-Fraud on his own.
Torre, on All Things Considered:
"And the A-Fraud stuff was done in front of him, none of that stuff was behind his back."
Maybe the quote from the LK interview about "It wasn't like anything was said behind his back" could be interpreted as just part of the Bowa story, but he was pretty unequivocal on NPR. Even re: the Bowa story, that's hardly a mitigation of "people in the clubhouse, including teammates and support personnel..."
Whether the above passage is "Torre" or "Verducci," Torre's name is on the book and he should either stand behind it, or throw Verducci under the bus (and accept the consequences of THAT...).
Actually, behind someone's back is his front. To be in front of someone's back is to be behind them.
Only my brother agrees with me.
Behind someone's back is certainly redundant and repetative and something Mojo-Jojo would say over and over again.
We need an official ruling on this front/back thing. What's the phone number of the Department of Redundancy Department's phone number.
The interview I heard with Torre (I think it was the NPR one) said it started behind ARod's back but later came out into the open, as people tried to get ARod to relax, and then he told the Bowa story to show how far it went.
I think Torre is now emphasizing something different than what is written in the book (by Verducci with Torre's review and approval), but that there isn't any necessary factual contradiction between what's in the book and what he says now.
I also think there isn't anything unusual about writing something and being taken a bit by surprise by the reaction to it, and then trying to explain a fuller picture given that reaction. But maybe that's just because I'm not a good enough writer.