Joe Torre Signs On With Dodgers
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LOS ANGELES — Joe Torre was hired today to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers, taking the job two weeks after walking away from the New York Yankees.
Torre moved from one storied franchise to another, getting a three-year contract. He takes over a team that finished fourth in the NL West this season and hasn’t won the World Series since 1988.
The 67-year-old Torre becomes the Dodgers’ eighth manager since they moved west from Brooklyn for the 1958 season. Torre grew up in Brooklyn, rooting for the rival New York Giants and detesting the Dodgers.
“As a kid growing up, you didn’t like them,” Torre said on WFAN radio in New York less than an hour before the hiring was announced. “As a player, to me the Dodgers were the Yankees of the National League because … you either loved them or you hated them.”
Torre guided the Yankees to four World Series championships from 1996-2000, and they made the playoffs in all 12 years he managed them. After New York was beaten in the first round by Cleveland last month, the Yankees offered him a one-year contract with a paycut.
Insulted, Torre turned it down. Torre was hired by the Dodgers on the same day the Yankees formally introduced Joe Girardi as their manager.
