PHILADELPHIA (AP) -Joe Torre got more out of this season than an NL West title with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He got a chance to prove he could win without the New York Yankees.
“I didn’t necessarily feel I needed to vindicate myself, I just wanted to see if I could do it somewhere else,” the manager said Wednesday. “It wasn’t that I was looking to get out of New York. I just felt it was time to leave because it wasn’t as comfortable.”
After a drawn-out split with the Yankees, Torre found a perfect fit in Los Angeles. He won four World Series titles and six AL pennants during his 12 seasons managing New York, making the playoffs every year. But the team offered him only a one-year contract last fall following its third straight first-round exit.
Torre, who will manage the Dodgers against the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL championship series starting Thursday night, was reluctant to uproot his family and make the 3,000-mile trek from one coast to the other. At 68, he had no intention of starting over.
eep into October.
“I think the word is satisfaction, more so than vindication,” Torre said. “I was curious, after you’re in one place for so long, you’re not sure your voice carries to other people.”
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PERCY IMPROVING: Tampa Bay closer Troy Percival, left off the team’s first-round playoff roster because of back tightness, pitched in a pair of instructional league games while the Rays played the Chicago White Sox.
The 39-year old right-hander hopes those two outings make him at least an option for the AL championship series.
“I got to where I could use my old mechanics instead of having to open really early to force the ball in there,” Percival said. “I threw strikes on both sides of the plate. All my off-speed pitches were good. I feel good.”
Percival, who had three stints on the disabled list this season with left hamstring and right knee injuries, finished with 28 saves – but only one after Aug. 13.
Rays manager Joe Maddon hasn’t ruled out Percival for the best-of-seven series against Boston. Team officials have been discussing whether to go with 10 or 11 pitchers.
“No pressure one way or another,” Percival said. “The only thing was so they had the option if they needed me, I’d be ready. If they need somebody, I’ll be ready.”
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onents. But they have a forgiving side, too.
Mitch Williams was the closer the last time the Phillies reached the World Series in 1993. He allowed Joe Carter’s series-clinching homer in Game 6 that gave Toronto its second consecutive championship. Williams received death threats and eggs were tossed at his house after that game.
He never threw another pitch for the Phillies. Williams was traded to Houston that offseason and finished his career with Kansas City in 1997.
But when Williams returned to Philadelphia for the first time with the Astros in 1994, fans gave him a standing ovation. Now, he’s everywhere in Philly. Williams is a part-time co-host on radio and an analyst on local television.
“If you give everything you got every time you walk out there, these people in Philadelphia will never have a problem with you,” Williams said. “I was able to come back here because they knew that. They knew I gave everything I had every time I went out there.”
Williams never asked the Phillies to trade him after the blown save in the World Series. He wanted to return to Philadelphia no matter the pressure.
“They were great,” he said about the fans. “They were always great to me. They knew I never made excuses. If I screwed something up, I tried to go out the next night and fix it. It’s the same thing with them. They don’t have a great day at work every day, so they understand that.”
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TAG, YOU’RE OUT: In football, the ground can’t cause a fumble. But in baseball there’s no specific rule for how long a player must hold onto the ball after tagging a runner out, as Jason Varitek learned in the AL playoffs against the Angels.
The Red Sox catcher chased down Los Angeles pinch-runner Reggie Willits after a botched suicide squeeze, diving to tag him out just before Willits got back to third base. But after applying the tag, Varitek fell, landed on his left arm and dropped the ball.
Had the ball come loose as a result of contact with Willits, the runner would have been safe. But since the out was already recorded and the drop was part of a separate event – the fall – umpire Tim Welke was correct to rule Willits out, according to Mike Port, Major League Baseball’s vice president of umpiring.
Varitek said Wednesday he had no idea what the rule was, but when Welke explained it to him it made sense.
“There are reasonable people who disagree, but when you look inside of it, I think Tim Welke came out on the right side of things,” Port said.
The rules do specify that when a player makes an out with a catch, he has to release the ball voluntarily and intentionally.
“There is no such provision with respect to a tag,” Port said Wednesday.
o Rule 2.0.
So, how long does the fielder have to hold on?
“Three days, 14 hours and 47 minutes,” Port joked.
Actually, there’s no firm rule, he said, noting that if a player who caught the last out in the last game of the World Series dropped it as part of a postgame celebration, the umpires would not reverse the call. Rule 9.01 (c) gives umpires the authority to use their judgment on any situation not specifically covered by the rules.
“It’s one of those unusual plays,” Port said. “In the 170-some years of this game, we’re still coming up with things. Nothing is absolute. That’s why we have umpires.”
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