JOE'S ABOUT TO GO, BUT WHEN?

Joe Torre being fired by the New York Yankees seems to be a matter of when, not if, so the question to ask yourselves is how long George M. Steinbrenner III will let a decent and honourable man twist in the wind.

The new Yankees manager will likely be Lou Piniella. He's a winner, and having been in Seattle, has a proven track record for rubbing Vaseline all over Alex Rodriguez's heinie and telling him that it's special and different from everyone else's (uh, figuratively speaking).

Big Stein and the Yankees will probably want to drag this out a bit, since the Mets are in the National League Championship Series and destined for the World Series. Big Stein absolutely hates it when the Mets are on the back page of New York tabloids.

(As for the NLCS, no one should take the St. Louis Cardinals lightly. After all, Tony La Russa's team did win almost 84 games in a division that includes Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and the Chicago Cubs. Seriously, though, don't take the Cardinals lightly.)

The guess here is that the speculation will last through the Mets-Cardinals series, and if the Mets advance, then the ax falls on Torre on Friday, Oct. 20, the eve of Game 1 of the World Series. By the way, if I wake up at noon to the news Torre is done, this post never appeared.

To continue on the tangent, the new manager, likely Piniella, probably gets introduced early the following week, perhaps on Tuesday, Oct. 24, the day the Mets would play their first home game of the Series. This isn't inside information; it's just an educated guess.

(Actually, ex-Marlins manager Joe Girardi is equally likely to get the job, but there was no Anchorman reference that applied to him. By the way, if it is Girardi, someone will start screaming conspiracy between Jeffrey Loria, Bud Selig and Big Stein.)

As for Torre, he is a decent and honourable man, but his managerial savvy has become a little dodgy. If you have a copy of Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders, read up on how he probably cost the Yankees the 2003 World Series against the Florida freakin' Marlins. Oh, and batting A-Rod eighth against the Tigers? Predictably, all it did was turn A-Rod into even more of a mope. Twenty-four hours later, it seems like a give-up move.

Related:
Torre's Time To Be Moving On (Shaun Powell, Newsday)
After Yankees' Early Exit, Joe Must Go (Jon Heyman, SI.com)
Say It Ain't So: A-Rod Can't Beat The Tigers, So He Might Join Them? (Oct. 8)

Back with more later. Happy Thanksgiving for those of you who still have another bird to feast on. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.