Kriegel: Out west, Torre takes the high road

Out West: Torre and Mattingly go out west for Torre’s health and get mixed up with some bad guys, the Arizona Diamondbacks. The D-Backs have locked up Andre (Arizona Kid) Ethier and Bob Melvin plans to marry his girl, Nell! The boys help the Arizona Kid escape and he rides to fetch the Cavalry (a nice turn, and twist, and turn, and twist, and turn by Manny Ramirez here). Somehow, Torre and Mattingly manage to defeat the bad guys as soon as the Cavalry arrived!

The greatest component of Yankee Tradition, of course, is money. The Yankees are moving to a new, publicly subsidized stadium across the street where they can charge “fans” up to $2,500 a seat. Apparently, a money grab of this magnitude warrants a colossal gala. It’s no surprise, then, that all the Yankee greats were there for the final game: Rudy Giuliani, Val Kilmer, Richard Gere, even Kevin Millar. But Hank Steinbrenner’s minions saw to it that the festivities — which lasted as long as the Super Bowl pregame — bore no mention of Torre, who managed the team to four World Series championships and 12 consecutive playoff appearances.

Torre has declined to comment on the slight, but Thursday I asked him about Steinbrenner’s argument, that winning the NL West means less than winning the AL East.

He went on about the divisional format and the cyclical nature of sports. It was his way of avoiding the question. Complaining about the divisional format, he said, “is just a natural reaction.”

Torre doesn’t want to gloat. To root against Steinbrenner’s team, he said the other day, “would mean that I’m happy that (Derek) Jeter is not in it and (Joe) Girardi is not in it. That’s just not right. I could never do that.”