They just can’t cue the violins: Now David Wells rips Joe Torre, calling him ‘a coward’
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Sometimes a guy just can’t sail off into the sunset....
Joe Torre announced Friday that he was stepping down as the Dodgers manager after this season, but it’s hardly been all roses since.
Comments he made while in New York on Monday about taking a phone call from Mets owners over managing that team brought a stinging rebuke from current Mets Manager Jerry Manuel, who questioned Torre’s integrity.
Torre apologized and said he would not manage the Mets, but just as that brouhaha had begun to fizzle, now comes ex-Yankees pitcher David Wells calling Torre ‘a coward.’
Wells was talking to Yahoosports.com in a podcast about Yankees starter A.J. Burnett’s pitching in the postseason when he suddenly diverted to his former manager.
‘I had [Yankees pitching coach] Mel Stottlemyre come up to me in ’97 and tell me they were going to sit me out in the first round against Cleveland,’ Wells said. ‘I said, ‘If you’re going to sit me out the first round, you might as well just send me home.’ That pissed me off because I won like 15, 16 games for them. … That’s pretty degrading when you have your manager tell your pitching coach to tell you, ‘Hey, you’re going to sit out,’ rather than telling you himself. That’s what Joe Torre is to me, a coward.
‘I don’t like him at all. As a manager, I think he’s terrible. He wasn’t a fair manager. He didn’t treat people the same. He definitely didn’t treat me the same. … If he tells you anything else, he’s a liar.’
And otherwise, have a nice day.
Somehow, I think there are worse managerial sins than having your pitching coach relay the postseason rotation plans to the starters.
Wells, who will be a TBS postgame studio analyst during the playoffs, must not have been all that upset about it.
After pitching a second season for Torre in ’98, he was traded to the Blue Jays for Roger Clemens. Then four years later, he re-signed with the Yankees as a free agent.
[Updated:]
Torre, understandably, took the high road when asked about Wells’ comments before Thursday’s game.
‘David is David, he’s a colorful character,’’ Torre said. ‘He can pitch, I’ll tell you that. As far as what ignited this, I couldn’t tell you. I went up to him the other day in New York and shook his hand and said, ‘Hi.’ He shook my hand and said, ‘Hi.’ ‘
Torre said he realizes Wells doesn’t care for him, though Wells did attend a fundraiser for Torre’s Safe at Home Foundation.
‘The interesting part is, he doesn’t like me but he did come to the Yankees twice, so it couldn’t have been all that bad.’
-- Steve Dilbeck