While Manny Ramirez may be hitting .565/.615/1.130 in the early going with the Dodgers, apparently a 341 OPS+ isn’t quite good enough for Joe Torre. In a piece that notes the $200,000 Dodger fans have spent on Manny merchandise in the past week, Deadspin scribe Rick Chandler reports that Torre would like to see Manny cut his trademark dreadlocks. Oh, Joe. When will you ever learn?

Across the nation on the West Coast, the Dodgers are in second place, just one game behind the D-Backs. But by many accounts, their season has not been a success. They’re three games under .500, and as Ian O’Connor writes, Joe Torre doesn’t look so hot anymore. Sure, Frank McCourt killed a deal for CC Sabathia. Sure, Ned Colletti will probably take the blame. Los Angeles, however, expected more from Joe. I was surprised when Torre took this LA job. It was a no-win situation for him because, while the pressure wasn’t as high as it was in New York, anything short of a World Series would be both a disappointment and an admission that perhaps Torre isn’t as great an on-field manager as many think he was while in the Bronx.

It’s a quiet night in Yankeeland. We’re awaiting word on Tuesday night’s starter, and the Yanks had an off-day on Thursday as they journeyed to Minneapolis for a wrap-around weekend set with the 28-25 Twins.

But across the city in Shea Stadium, Joe Torre made his return to New York. He managed the Dodgers to a loss against the Mets and was received warmly by the Shea Faithful. Jack Curry sat down for an extensive look at Joe’s life post-Bronx:

But Frank Sinatra never had to manage a baseball team in New York, New York. While Torre was renowned for his lengthy interview sessions and seemed to enjoy the interaction with the news media, he said that the coverage surrounding the team changed about eight years ago. Torre could not pinpoint why. He just felt as if the game details often became secondary to other issues. Torre recounted how the Dodgers plunked Boston’s Manny Ramírez with a pitch in an exhibition game and it was barely noticed.

“New York is great for the good times and memorable for the bad times,” Torre said.

Three nights after Randolph heard a smattering of “Fire Willie” chants, Torre was serenaded like a returning king. After a pitching change in the seventh inning, Torre received a partial standing ovation as he walked from the mound to the dugout. He lifted his cap to the fans.

While Torre couldn’t pinpoint what changed, I can. The invulnerable Yankees lost in the postseason eight years ago, and they haven’t really managed to win that Holy Grail, that 27th championship, since then. What happened in 2001 was hardly Torre’s fault. Mariano threw the ball away; Scott Brosius didn’t throw the ball to first; the roof took away a potential Shane Spencer home run.

But as the Yankees stocked up on talent — when Jason Giambi came in and the Yanks had to replace Tino and Paul O’Neill — the media began to nitpick every move the $200-million team made, and Torre bore the brunt of that scrutiny.

Today, we’re on the verge of wrapping up month two of the Joe Girardi Era, and it’s gotten off to something less than the smooth start for which we were all hoping. The Yanks enter Minnesota in last place, one game under .500. They’re only 4.5 games behind the Red Sox for the fourth AL playoff spot, and I have to believe that the team’s fortunes will improve.

As I watched some of the Dodgers-Mets game from the gym before the Lost finale took my attention away from baseball for a few hours tonight, I asked myself if I wished Joe Torre were still managing in the Bronx. My answer was still no. I loved Joe in New York, and I think it’s too bad that he couldn’t still be around to manage the team into the new stadium. But I still think it was the right move for him and the Yanks to part ways.

Today, he and Girardi are both managing teams with high payrolls and sub-.500 records. But only in New York is the manager, the General Manager and everyone else under the sun under fire for this start. In Los Angeles, Joe Torre just sounds more at home, green tea and all.

Billy Witz checks in with Joe Torre in The Times today and finds that Torre does not miss the circus back east.

After his less-than-amicable departure from the Yankees, Torre is settling into a new reality, attempting to restore credibility to a franchise that has won one playoff game in 20 seasons.

There is no fishbowl, no calls from Boss & Sons and no suggestions from above for lineup changes.

On the other hand, there is no $200 million payroll. The Dodgers constitute the Little Engine That Could.

“This is more reminiscent of my first year there,” Torre said of the 1996 Yankees, who won the World Series. “We were underdogs. I remember George telling me in June, ‘Are you doing this with mirrors?’ We didn’t have home run hitters. It drove him nuts because he liked to beat everybody by 10 runs, but we were playing solid baseball.”

Of course, the problem is that the 2008 Dodgers are nothing at all like the 1996 Yankees. The Dodgers right now find themselves treading water at 9-13. They’re in fourth place, seven games behind the Diamondbacks. In 1996, the Yanks were 12-10 after 22 games and found themselves in first place for the first time. They would remain there all season.

Right now, the Dodgers are playing a bit below their run differential. They probably should be 12-10, and in that regard, they are similar to the 1996 Yankees. But Torre in Los Angeles is still doing the things that Torre in New York did that drove us all crazy. Joe Beimel has appeared in 13 games already this season; Scott Proctor, of course, has pitched in 11; and Jonathan Broxton has thrown in nine games.

When Torre took the Dodger job, it seemed like a moment of hubris for the former Yankee skipper. He wanted to prove to the baseball world and his critics that he could win without a $200 million payroll. He wanted to prove that he had what it took to lead a baseball club that needed managing instead of one that could operate fairly well on auto-pilot. Right now, this gambit isn’t working, and I have to wonder if Torre’s legacy would have been better off had he just called it a career after his less-than-friendly divorce from the Yanks in October.

One thing though is for certain: The 2008 Dodgers are not the 1996 Yankees.

The Dodgers and Yankees both sit at 4-4 a few games behind their respective division leaders. Despite the 3000 miles separating New York from Los Angeles, though, these teams this year will be linked by Joe Torre.

Today, Rick A., a new contributor at My Baseball Bias, waxes nostalgically about Joe Torre. With the Yankees seemingly struggling at 4-4 in the early goes, Rick wonders, “In hindsight, was it a bad move to essentially get rid of Torre?” He equivocates on the answer and ends by reaffirming something upon which all Yankees agree: We will always look back fondly on the Joe Torre Era.

I’d like to take a short stab though at answering the question posed by Rick. I think the answer is a resounding no. To me, Joe Torre and the Yankees will forever be linked. He was named the manager of the team before my 13th birthday and served in his role until I was 24. I doubt any Yankee manager will last as long as Torre did during my lifetime, and my high school years are filled with memories of the Yankees winning the World Series year after year.

Then, for me, along came college and with it, Joe Torre’s magic touch disappeared. I watched the Yankees lose two World Series, lose one divisional series in four games and lose historically to the Red Sox in 2004. It was, in fact, after that momentous ALCS that I believe Torre and the Yanks should have parted company.

Hindsight aside, during those last four games, we saw the Yankees outmaneuvered and out-managed. Torre showed his proclivity for his guys when he went with Bernie Williams over Kenny Lofton even in obvious situations. He showed his tendencies toward bullpen abuse. He showed a lack of creative strategy when he didn’t steal off of the Wakefield-Varitek battery or bunt off of Curt Schilling.

But the Yanks let Joe linger, and the last three seasons for Torre seemed more like a battle than anything prior had. It wouldn’t have been a kneejerk reaction to dismiss Torre in 2004, and it wasn’t a bad move to let him go in 2007.

So far, I have no qualms with Joe Girardi. I think he’s done a great job of managing the bullpen through the first eight games, and the players seem to respect him as they did Torre. He might not deliver four World Series championship in his first five seasons as manager, but who can? I’ll miss Torre for what he represented; I don’t miss him for his managing quite yet.

Everyone’s talking about change these days. Presidential candidates on all sides of the aisle want change. Baseball officials want to change the perceptions of a drug culture surrounding baseball. And, hey, there’s a new manager in New York, and things have changed.

Now, as you can pretty well guess based on the headline, I’m not about to write some nostalgic piece pining for the days of Joe Torre or noting how weird he looks in Dodger blue. Today, in my office, a few people were commenting on Torre’s appearance in a Dodgers hat, and to me, it wasn’t that big of a deal. But then again, I signed off on Joe Torre shortly after midnight on Thursday, October 21, 2004.

In the comments to Mike’s short piece about Torre’s appearance on ESPN’s Sunday Conversation, opinion seemed divided on Joe Torre and whether he should be considered the “right” person to manage the 2008 team or should have been let go long enough. It seems now that the writing was on the wall for longer than we thought.

Yesterday, in a piece that nicely complements the ESPN interview, Torre talked with Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News about his tenure with the Yankees. Here’s what the man once dubbed Saint Joe by the New York press had to say:

The last 3 years were difficult. I think it started probably with losing to the Red Sox. Because that becomes a mortal sin,” he said. “And even though the Red Sox were obviously a very good team that year, we got lucky early. They didn’t play well. Then we had two leads in Games 4 and 5 we couldn’t hold onto.

“Since that time, it may be a little too strong to say [the Yankees] wanted to make a change. But for me it wasn’t as comfortable. It could have been self-induced. I don’t know. Last season was very uncomfortable, especially with the bad start we had. There were a lot of questions and stories I had to address.

“I’m sure it took its toll on me, but when you walk into the clubhouse and all of a sudden the players aren’t sure what they should say, what they shouldn’t say, your coaching staff, that made it doubly uncomfortable for me. I just think over the last few years it was gradually getting to the point of not being a helluva lot of fun. The baseball was still fun, but aside from that…”

I know that Joe Torre wasn’t responsible for the way the team played during that 2004 ALCS, but his decisions impacted the game. He decided to all but ignore Kenny Lofton on the bench; he decided not run on Jason Varitek while the Red Sox catcher tried and failed to catch Tim Wakefield’s knuckleballs. He decided to allow Tom Gordon to pitch to David Ortiz in a pivotal at-bat late in game 5. Sure; hindsight is 20-20, but I vividly remember screaming at the TV while the games were played. It is just as easy to second-guess Torre for his managing during the ALCS as it was then, and my critiques have not changed.

Meanwhile, Torre’s impact on the team grew to the point where he openly feuded with key players. He played favorites with the bullpen; he gave guys like Miguel Cairo way too many at-bats long after they ceased being usable. In fact, Brian Cashman had to step in and trade Joe Torre’s guys away from the Yanks because Joe kept using them despite obvious ineffectiveness.

It was, in other words, long past time to go for Torre in 2007. It was well past time to go for Torre in 2005, but his saintly status kept him on.

Now, I know this sounds harsh. That’s the problem with taking an unpopular opinion, and it certainly understates Torre’s impact on the Yanks. His 1173-767 career New York record (.605 winning percentage) and his 12 straight playoff berths have long earned him my admiration. He did a masterful job handling the Yankees in the late 1990s with Don Zimmer at his side and always dealt well with the media even after Zimmer left.

But there was something about the way 2004 unfolded that seemed to bode ill for the future. Torre’s trust in his team was gone, and a lot of people started viewing his moves with skepticism.

I love Joe for what he brought to the Yankees; I don’t expect Joe Girardi to duplicate 12 years of unparalleled Major League success. But there comes a time for every team and every manager when they part ways. The 2007 split was far from ideal, and both the Yankees and Torre didn’t seem to handle it well. It was, in fact, a rare misstep for Torre who didn’t come out looking too sympathetic one way or another.

I’ll miss Joe for what he symbolizes — the winning ways of the Yankees during my high school years in the late 1990s when the Yankees were supposed to win the World Series because that was the way things were. I’ll wish him luck in Los Angeles and hope that the eventual mediocrity won’t tarnish his Hall of Fame credentials.

But I will look forward to the next Joe Era, the one of Girardi, the one in which players come to camp ready to compete and ready to get along better with their manager. It won’t be perfect, but it’s something new. And the Yanks have needed something new since that fateful night in October of 2004 when I sat alone and watched history unfold incredulous and shocked.

I know he’s not the Yanks’ manager anymore, but it’s a great interview that’s worth three minutes of your time regardless. The third winningest manager in Bombers’ history talks Mitchell Report, the pressures he felt in NY, and milking pitchers for another hitter or two.

I’ve come to grips with Girardi being the man in charge now, and I’m sure he’ll do an excellent job, but I still believe Torre’s the guy that should be managing the team. There’s things off the field that need managing too, and Joe was the master at that. Chastise me in the comments if you wish, that’s just my personal opinion.

As the ESPN Hot Stove Heater chats continue, Rob Neyer takes on the Joe vs. Joe debate. We’ve certainly rehashed the Torre vs. Girardi debate a few times this winter. Neyer, for his part, never really comes out on either side of the debate.

I’m covering over at MLB Trade Rumors tonight, so I’m going through the normal channels to find the latest transactions. You gotta believe this bit from RotoWorld made me snarf my beer:

Dodgers signed RHP Tanyon Sturtze

Yeah, there were 10 other names on that list — including former Yankee farmhand John-Ford Griffin.

The only remaining question: How’s Joe going to burn out Proctor’s and Sturtze’s arms? He’ll be pulling his starters in the fifth inning every game!

Joe Torre is going to write a book about his 12 years managing the Yankees. Not included in this tell-all memoir will be chapters concerning Jeff Weaver and the 2003 World Series, Kenny Lofton’s role keeping the bench warm during the last four games of the 2004 ALCS, the decision to not bunt against Curt Schilling or an epilogue by Brian Cashman on why, when you stop to think about it, Torre’s time in the Bronx should have been up three years ago.