Major League Baseball just announced that Joe Torre is resigning from his post as Executive Vice President for Baseball Operations, effective immediately, to explore opportunities with a group that will pursue ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
He’s had the job since last February. In that time he has dealt with umpires, replay and discipline for on-the-field stuff. For now the job will be filled on an interim basis by MLB Senior Vice Presidents Joe Garagiola, Jr., Kim Ng and Peter Woodfork. A permanent replacement will be found later.
If baseball is smart they’d give the job to Kim Ng full time because someone needs to break up the boys club. But if they don’t do that, the permanent replacement has to be Tony La Russa, right? I have no idea how he’d do in the job, but on a selfish basis I think he’d be interesting. Think about it: if there was a beanball war, La Russa would probably suspend the pitchers who did not retaliate. There would be fines to any manager who didn’t change pitchers three times in an inning to gain a nearly-non-existent platoon advantage. What I’m saying is, Tony La Russa jokes would be able to live on, and I find that to be really important, personally speaking.
As we’ve previously mentioned, Torre has a chance to join in one of the groups looking to get in on the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers. His comment:
He doesn’t identify the group in the press release, but he has been linked with several, most notably one led by real estate developer Rick Caruso. Whichever group gets him, you have to think that Torre’s close relationship with Bud Selig and the league office would make life easier in the approval process.
UPDATE: Multiple outlets have confirmed that Torre is, in fact, joining Caruso’s bid.
