Joe Torre’s responsibilities at the National Baseball Hall of Fame have increased.
During a recent late May weekend, a time when most families plan backyard barbecues and picnics in a park, Mr. Torre is on the road. From his home in Westchester County, New York, 22 miles northeast of Manhattan, the Brooklyn native heads for what is rapidly becoming his second home–Cooperstown.
In recent years, like many of his fellow hall of famers (Mr. Torre was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2014), Mr. Torre has found a calling to serve baseball’s grand old home of its history. However, Mr. Torre, 83, has personally upped his game to ensure that the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is on course for a stronger tomorrow.
Appointed to the Hall’s board of directors in 2023, it was this past March at a board meeting in Florida that Mr. Torre was asked to take a seat closer to the front of the organization’s leadership roster.
The Hall of Fame’s board of directors voted Mr. Torre as its new vice-chairman. From a prepared statement by the Hall of Fame, Chairman of the Board Jane Forbes Clark stated that Mr. Torre’s leadership skills would help the board continue to keep the Hall relevant and dynamic.
Such an endorsement and backing by the 13-members board of directors made up of fellow hall of famers, club owners, and entrepreneurs, humbled Mr. Torre.
“Jane [Jane Forbes Clark] asked me to consider taking the position. I saw her request as such a privilege,” Mr. Torre told The Epoch Times prior to the 2024 Hall of Fame East-West Classic at Cooperstown’s Doubleday Field.
“After the board took the vote, I began another layer of responsibility to the institution. I was happy to accept.”
And so, during the Memorial Day Weekend, Mr. Torre motored up the New York State Thruway for rural Otsego County. Along with attending the ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the museum’s newest exhibit, The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball, the unveiling of a Hank Aaron (Hall of Fame Class of 1982) bronze statue in concert with the late slugger 50 years earlier breaking Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record, and serving as one of six coaches for Team East for the Classic, Mr. Torre’s daily planner was full.
For Mr. Torre’s latest position in the Hall’s administrative hierarchy, he compared the request the same as when he was playing for the St. Louis Cardinals.
“They saw more in me than I did,” recalls Mr. Torre of his being elected captain of the ball club.
With his baseball wisdom sought by the hall of fame and museum, the former player and manager also serves Major League Baseball as a special assistant to Commissioner Rob Manfred.
Whether offering his expertise in Cooperstown or New York City, in speaking with Mr. Torre, you get a sense of such a love of the game that the former National League MVP is embracing his baseball statesmanship with the same enthusiasm as he had when worn a uniform.
The baseball fan within still burns bright in Mr. Torre.
“The year I went into the Hall of Fame, Al Kaline (Hall of Fame Class of 1980), when I arrived at the hotel, was the first to welcome me. His embracing me; that feeling had never gone away, when I walked into the museum. Each time I’m there it’s like I’m reliving my childhood.”
During his latest visit to Cooperstown, Mr. Torre was clad in a traditional, flannel uniform that resembled that worn during the Negro Leagues All-Star Games, between 1933-1962. Having played in more than 2,000 games and collecting more than 2,000 hits as a player during his 18-season MLB career, Mr. Torre is still on the giving end of his celebrity.
As New York Yankees manager for one dozen seasons (1996-2007), Mr. Torre was uber successful, by leading the “Bronx Bombers” to six American League Pennants and four World Series championships. It’s that same winning strategist in the dugout, that saw Mr. Torre reach iconic status in professional sports, that the caretakers of baseball in Cooperstown are banking on for repeat performances.
“Going into the Hall of Fame was something that I never gave a lot of thought to. That was someone else’s decision, whether I was going to get in or not,” says Mr. Torre, who managed for 29 seasons, with his first coming in 1977 as a player-manager with the New York Mets.
Listening to Mr. Torre paint a picture of being “a little boy again” during each summer’s Hall of Fame Induction Weekend, he especially looks forward to the Hall of Famers Only dinner. On Sunday afternoon, following the newest class’s induction speeches, the Hall of Famers head to The Otesaga Resort Hotel for a private gathering.
So it was on Saturday, May 25, his third day of four planned in Cooperstown, Mr. Torre was once again the grand ambassador of the game that all had come to know. Nearly 6,000 fans jammed historic Doubleday Field to watch more than two dozen former MLB players, many recently retired, take part in the six-inning exhibition game.
Comfortably seated in the first base side dugout during the teams’ batting practice, and a home run derby, Mr. Torre made himself available to media members covering the event. Some of the questions were asked more than once, Mr. Torre answered each as if unique, and seemed to make a special effort to make all have a personal connection with him.
Labeling his fellow hall of famers as “good people,” citing Ozzie Smith, Jim Kaat, and Eddie Murray, first, as they were all coaching in the Classic, Mr. Torre projects a deep understanding of the privileged position he enjoys. With a constant desire to live up to his new role in preserving baseball’s history, if not at home in Downstate, New York, it’s a safe bet that Mr. Torre could be reached Upstate; a three-hour drive northeast of Westchester at the “Home of Baseball.”
