Joe Torre, Best Manager in Baseball

Joe Torre's Going to the Playoffs Once Again
L.A. was predicted to have trouble winning this year--they were young and the oldtimers they had were injured or taking options, so it didn't look good for the Dodgers...that is until George Steinbrenner did L.A. the biggest favor since they got the Brooklyn Dodgers franchise--George decided Joe Torre was finished as a manager but he didn't fire Joe but rather offered him a cut in salary and a very tentative renewal contract and Joe told George to go fuck himself and quit the Yankees and went home to Jersey. It wasn't long before we baseball freaks heard that L.A. had made Joe an offer--and Joe had accepted it--a beautiful deal, plus a chance to live in L.A. and get the glory and attention Joe needed to come up out of the doldrums George Steinbrenner had put him in. So what does Joe Torre do with the L.A. "Low Life" Dodgers this year?

Here ya go:

National League West
Team	W	L	Pct.	GB	Home	Road	East	Cent.	West	L10	Strk
L.A. Dodgers	80	73	.523	-	45-30	35-43	16-18	23-18	36-27	7-3	W 1
Arizona (7)	76	76	.500	3½	45-33	31-43	15-21	16-19	39-27	5-5	W 4
Colorado (E)	70	83	.458	10	42-36	28-47	15-21	21-18	27-36	3-7	W 2
San Francisco (E)	68	85	.444	12	35-40	33-45	19-13	11-29	32-31	5-5	L 4
San Diego (E)	58	95	.379	22	34-44	24-51	12-16	15-23	28-41	3-7	L 2

Joe Girardi, Joe's replacement--"youth" that's what George said the Yankees needed--and all would be solved--except Joe Girardi is 9 games behind Boston and Tampa Bay now--no chance for the playoffs this year--and how many years has it been since the Yankees have missed a playoff?

Boo-hoo to Jerry Manuel, too. He didn't do so hot with the Mets, though they may make the Wild Card--currently they are a game and a half behind to folding Phillies--and they are ahead of Milwaukee in the Wild Card chase. So Manuel may get to the playoffs this year, but he didn't do much better than Willie last year, his team doing the same thing this year they did last year--Pedro didn't have anything and the bullpen let Manuel down as usual--plus they lost Billy Wagner to injury. Seems to me they could have just as well given Willie another chance this year, but then what the hell do I know about baseball?

The irony concerning the Yankees's flop year is that they flopped with a .538 winning percentage, better than Joe's Dodgers.

I watched the Yankees-Orioles game on local teevee tonight. It was exciting. Carl "I'm Sick" Pavano pitched for the Yanks--and damned if he didn't pitch 5 fairly good innings. The score early was 2-0, Orioles, but then the Yanks got 2 on a homer from Cano and tied it up. The Yanks went ahead 3-2 and stayed that way until Jabo "Jawbone" Chamberlain came in the top of the 8th and struck out the side. Mariano closed it in the ninth and it was wild and woolly and the Orioles got two on and then Mariano got Brian Roberts, the best Oriole, to pop out and the Yanks won a great game. Still it was sad to know they're not going anywhere this year--and this is the last year they're playing in the "real" Yankee Stadium--can you imagine desecrating that sacred baseball ground for a 2.1 billion dollar replacement stadium that replicas the old stadium with the exception it has no cheap seats anymore--I mean is $45 cheap!

Pestilence
New York City suddenly has a mosquito problem again. The Lords and Ladies who run the city are beginning the big West Nile virus scare and in the hinterlands, like Suffolk County, they are aerial spraying from helicopters at the risk of that being a bigger health hazard than West Nile. Two elders have died this year from West Nile and that triggers this big mosquito scare where people will let themselves be drenched in DDT. People are so stupid. I can remember a time not that too long ago either when nobody in New York City had ever heard of West Nile disease.

Good News for New York Citians
Our connection to the New York City real estate market tells us--over a chilled bottle of Moet champagne, the Wolf Man's favorite when it comes to bubbly--that in about a week or two the bottom is going to drop out of the City real estate market. Already apartments selling for 5 million bucks have dropped to 2.5 million--and mansions on Long Island are up for sale at "going-down" prices--formerly 50 million dollar trophy houses down to whatever the hell they can recoup from their expenses--like big celebrities are getting screwed big time out in the Hamptons with these overpriced houses. And still our billionaire mayor keeps telling us it was never better in New York City--why, a building boom is on, the tax rate is at its highest ever (especially on the poor), and his developer pals are still looking to steal as much land from the city as they can so they can build some more unaffordable housing and fancy hotels.

I can't wait for all these foreign-money-backed landlords to go belly up! Oh what a glorious Chaotic day that will be when people are jumping out of their hi-rise overpriced luxury apartments. Still an 18-story hotel is continuing to be built right up next to my apartment building--we already have 2 hotels in my block, plus a 2000-room job--62 stories--is going up just up the block--it's sad, folks, downright sad to see this city being gutted of its communities in favor for hi-rise luxury hotels and apartment buildings--all financed by foreign money. You can tell who finances hotels by the people who are running the hotels; the two hotels already operating in my block are hosted by Injah-type Indians--those from the real India, the country in which Colombo thought he had landed when he got to Santo Domingo and begin purging the area of its "Indian" population--and old Colombo did a good job of wiping out the Caribbean Aborigines--through infecting them with white man's diseases or just outright murdering them by the droves. Ah, those loving conquistadores.

And Mexican Independence passed and I was sick on the day I was supposed to party hearty at a mariachi concert with free food and drink--Viva Mexico! Like the Yankees, now I have to wait 'til next year.

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler