Last Night On Tonight

Last night Dodgers manager Joe Torre appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. The full interview can be seen here; however, below are a few notable interview excerpts starting with Torre recalling a time he shared an elevator with a Red Sox fan...

Torre: I was coming down the elevator last day of the series in Boston and this guy gets on and he says to me…are you Joe Torre? And I said yes, and he says “we’re going to beat you tonight.” And I say well I hope not but if that’s the case that’s the case. And we continue on down and we’re about the third floor and I can see something is going on. And just as were about reaching the lobby he says, "you know if I had a choice of capturing Saddam Hussein or beating the Yankees, I would pick beating the Yankees."

Conan: I’d like to apologize for my father’s behavior.
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Conan: This is a personal observation, a lot of managers, it’s not a happy task when they have to walk out to the mound to take a pitcher out. No one has a grimmer walk to the mound than Joe Torre. There are managers in the game who try and put a good face on it, I think Francona sometimes tries to look like “Well I’m just gonna come out like and eh it didn’t go well but maybe you’ll play tomorrow (Torre laughs)." You walk out like a man taking a death march.

Torre: Usually when I go out though it’s taking the ball away from the pitcher so it’s never really good news. However, when you are leading in a ball game and you have a closer like Jonathan Broxton (applause from crowd) who’s pretty special coming out of the bullpen it’s not too bad. But I walk and I run about the same speed so it doesn’t really matter.
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Conan: I need to bring up Manny Ramirez. This was a shocking story to a lot of people, one of the greatest hitters of all time, suspended from the game, a lot of allegations back and forth. This must have been a great shock to you. Did you have any clue that anything might be slightly awry with Manny?

Torre: You know I'm pretty naive and I don't want to believe players do anything and you know when this came down about Manny it was certainly a shock. It shocked the ball players as well obviously because he became such an important part of our ball club last year and the thing is he showed these guys how to have a lot of fun. The thing about it, and I know people like to pass judgment and nobody is condoning the usage of steroids in sports, but the thing about it is when you have a relationship with players...they're people. And I really felt bad for Manny because he was so embarrassed by this whole thing, which he should be, and he is still in that state basically. This is uncomfortable for him. He's looking forward to getting back to playing baseball cause that's what he does best. The players will embrace him, I know the fans in LA will embrace him, and hopefully he'll get settled in and help us score some runs.