Joe Torre's Secret For Success
There's no doubt: The New York Yankees manager Joe Torre is a winner and a champion. But success for him was a long time in the making.
In fact, it took Torre more games than anyone else in the history of baseball just to make it into the World Series - 4,272 games to be exact.
In a book called Joe Torre's Ground Rules for Winners, Torre shares his formula to being a successful manager. He discusses his challenges and how he overcomes them on The Early Show.
Torre leads with a quiet intensity rivaled only by his respect for and from his players.
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To understand his managerial style, look no further than weeping player Darryl Strawberry, thanking Torre for "caring about me" before a crowd of thousands at the parade for this year's World Series champion team.
But the loyalty and respect don't stop with his current winning players.
Former player Brian Jordan of the Atlanta Braves, in a television interview, recognized him as well, saying,"It will be great to see and talk to my father figure Joe Torre, who I have the utmost admiration and respect for."
| Read Joe Torre's 12 keys, covered in his book, to managing team players, tough bosses, setbacks and success. |
Win or lose, Torre has garnered the respect of his players. How does he do it? Some of the answers are in his new book.
In it, with the help of co-author Henry Dreher, Torre discloses his managerial approach and strategies for success with stories from his championship years with the Yankees as well as from earlier stints as a player and manager.
"It's not only a formula to tell you how to win, but it's a formula to tell you how to accept what you've done and think optimistically and deal with it," says Torre.
Even though the Yankees won the World Series in 1999, Torre would be the first to tell you that it was his "most difficult" season.
Diagnosed with prostate cancer during spring training this year, Torre found the 1999 season began in an ominous fashion.
"I'll be 60 on my next birthday. I was saying, 'Sixty, and I got a 3-year-old daughter.' [I am] getting old. I want to be around for a while. All of a sudden, this cancer hits you, [and] you don't think about age any more," Torre says.
"You just want to feel good, and you take every day as it comes. If you feel good, you enjoy it," he explains
Living in the shadows of a record-setting 1998 season, his players were under incredible pressure to repeat - if not outdo - that performance.
That, combined with the arrest of Strawberry on drug charges, the deaths of three of his players' fathers, and the passing of Yankee legend Joe Dimaggio, makes it easy to see why Torre calls 1999 his most "challenging season."
"Every time you get fired, they say you're a 'players' manager,' something like a plague," he says. "Now you win, and you're the best. But I think you come upon a lot of thingsÂ…when you lose and go through different organizations."
"The one thing I'm happy I stayed with was trusting players. I remember picking up a Bill Parcells book in the spring of '96, and it said, 'If you believe in something, stay with it.' And that's basically what I did," explains Torre.
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Three of his 12 keys to managing, covered in his book, directly deal with how best to deal with tough bosses. For Torre, that boss is George Steinbrenner.
"I think winning in '96 helped, but I think we have a mutual respect for each other. In fact, I know that. I always appreciated George before that, because he was giving me the ability to win on the field," says Torre.
"But this past spring when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he showed up in more of those hospitals and different places where I was getting tested to show me his support, and I really appreciated that," adds Torre.
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