September 23, 2008

Yankees Never Mentioned Torre In Stadium's Closing Ceremonies

Disgraceful. The Yankee organization touts itself as classy and professional, but I prefer to judge it on its actions, which on Sunday resembled those of a petulant child.

Jack Curry, New York Times:
Four World Series titles and 12 consecutive playoff appearances were not enough to merit Joe Torre a mention in Sunday's closing ceremonies at Yankee Stadium. Since Torre was as major part of the Yankees' success since 1996, it was a glaring omission. ...

If the Yankees had simply flashed an image of Torre on the scoreboard and detailed his achievements, it likely would have received a raucous ovation. The Yankees would have looked dignified for doing the right thing in honoring a manager who was a vital part of their Stadium's history. Instead, the Yankees erased Torre's name from their history, at least for Sunday night.
Yankees media relations director Jason Zillo said the omission was unintentional: "A lot of great Yankees weren't mentioned."

The ceremonies saluted Jesse Barfield -- but not Torre.

***

Roger Clemens -- who pitched for the Yankees for six years and has expressed a desire to wear an NY cap when he is inducted into the Hall of Fame -- was also absent from the ceremonies. Which is more hilarious than disgraceful.

Post:
Estranged former Yankee Roger Clemens was "heartbroken" when his former team left him out of Sunday night's Stadium-farewell festivities, which included a video montage honoring the Bronx Bombers' greatest pitchers - but not him, a relative told The Post yesterday.

Clemens was sitting at home in hurricane-ravaged Texas, in front of a battery-operated television on his living room couch, when the team delivered a final crushing blow to its former star.

Clutching wife Debbie's hand on one side and mother-in-law Jan Wild's on the other, Clemens tuned in to his final team's last home game hoping for some recognition ... [but] the steroid-scandal-scarred Clemens was nowhere to be seen.

6 comments:

allan said...

Re Fat Billy

SoSHer Rocco Graziosa sums it up quite well:

"You'd figure at this point Clemens either wants to kill Rusty Hardon, himself or both. It must KILL him to watch Andy Petite, a guy he introduced steroids to, and who fucking ADMITED that he used, get off scott free. I cannot tell you the level of schadenfreude I have with this guy. And it never stops. He keeps popping up in the papers with odd stories like this one....where Clemens MOTHER IN LAW goes in the papers and declares that Clemens watched the Yankees final game on a battery powered TV (which apparently gets ESPN) and he does it heartbroken and holding his wife and mother in laws hand. Its like something that would be printed on the Onion. Just beyond awesome."

laura k said...

Re Torre: disgraceful, disgusting - and typical.

Zenslinger said...

If you need another good laugh this morning, there's an article in the NYTimes called "In Afterglow, Yankees Cling to Hope". I follow the link, thinking it would be about hope for next year's lineup and all the closet cleaning they have planned.

Kepner's first line: "They finished off Yankee Stadium with a game that mattered Sunday, clinging to the narrowest sliver of hope for a playoff spot given up for dead."

Maybe the Post writer is trying to be funny about what was operating Clemens's TV and whose hand he was holding?

Pokerwolf said...

Leaving Torre out is definitely disgraceful.

I've had to avoid most columns about the last game at The Toilet because most of them are worshiping at the altar of the patron saint of intangibles. When sportswriters blabber things like "one more clutch performance from Jeter", I stop reading.

nixon33 said...

it wasnt exactly in the "opening" ceremonies of the game, but i heard several different accounts from fans and from radio hosts that they did have torre, and even donny baseball on the diamond vision with a pre-recorded video during the game.

maybe these writers missed it.
maybe the fans and the radio hosts were actually trying to will this , and it didnt really happen.
kay confirmed it yesterday that they did have the video.
but yes, it wasnt during the opening "actors on the field playing dead guys" part of it.

Tony said...

Clutching wife Debbie's hand on one side and mother-in-law Jan Wild's on the other, Clemens tuned in to his final team's last home game hoping for some recognition ... [but] the steroid-scandal-scarred Clemens was nowhere to be seen.

And then Roger gently let go of his wife and mother in law's hands, reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of $100 bills, slowly pulled the top bill off of the wad, replaced the wad of bills into his pocket, wiped a tear from his eye, and blew his nose.

The TCM can get the fuck over it.