June 17, 2007

Happy Father's Day...

...to my dad, who taught me everything I'll ever need for a lifetime of ranting about the Yankees. (Plus some other stuff, too).

As he always used to tell me, when times got tough: "Are you seeing this? When are they going to fire that dinosaur Torre?! The man's a fucking fossil!"

Love you too, pop.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"When are they going to fire that dinosaur Torre?! "

I didn't know Papa Eephus Pitch was a blogger?

:)

thanks for emma, dude!

7:01 PM
Anonymous said...

Very nice, Emma!

2:37 PM
Emma said...

Well, as noted Sunday, my father has many, many terrific qualities, but apparently figuring out how to post to this blog is not one of them. So he asked me to pass along this reply. I have to take issue with this portrayal of blind Torre devotion... However, in honor of father's day, I have no choice but to give him his say:

Thanks Em. As Emma's one and only Dad, I can testify to her lack of sentimentality. For many years on Father's Day and other days, she expressed a clear and non-sentimental wish that Joe Torre be her father. She saw him as wise, calm and soothing, as opposed to the nightmare she was saddled with. Although I always considered us close, I could never really live up to the Torre thing, and that may have subtly contributed to my fervent wish that he retire or be abruptly and without mercy, terminated.

For some years I have labored under this Torre complex, thinking that perhaps he would be a better Dad than me and also puzzled because I never really saw him manage smartly all that much (I have to own up to a huge Billy Martin thing - the best manager in my lifetime, I believe, sober or drunk) nor, after years of dreary, awfully packaged and technically mindless post-game shows, have I ever witnessed him saying an intelligent, surprising or unpredictable thing.

Normally cynical of all authority figures (this is true, believe me) and exceptionally willful, Em accepted every Torre utterance as if it came from Socrates himself.
Torre: "Well, I think he stayed within himself, at least that's how it looked to me. I mean...kind of."
Em: "Isn't he wonderful. That was so Torre like, so right."
Torre: "Well, I felt bad so I can imagine he felt bad about giving up 14 runs in one inning and nobody is beating him up more than him. That's about all I can say. Um...except nobody wants to win ball games more than George."
Em: "You couldn't say it any better than that, could you?"

So perhaps because of this bias, I am not able to always get the secret of Torre's longevity, since mostly during games he stares out at the field or jawbones with his Pleistocene pals. One thing he has not done in years is win many games, or win them at the right moments (yes, I know Em, all those division championships). In any case, and despite this, Em is a great kid - the one I have always wanted - and, as a baseball writer, stays completely within herself and wants to win ballgames and "what can you say about a performance like Em's. I mean, wow? I guess... umm." Love ya, babe.

11:26 PM
Emma said...

I should also note that he wants to post under "Papa Eephus."

It IS true that I used to say I wished Torre was my father. But I was kidding! Almost entirely!

11:27 PM
Anonymous said...

Papa Eephus (may I call you P. Eiddy?),

you sound like a nice guy to have a beer with!

And its okay. When I was growing up, I imagined Diana Rigg was my mom.

12:18 AM

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