Peter Abraham, probably my favorite Yankee beat writer in a long time, takes a quick break from the LoHud Yankees Blog and guest-posts over at The Baseball Analysts this morning with his thoughts on Joe Torre. It's a well-written piece and certainly worth your time. Of particular note are Peter's observations on Joe and his handling of the media as well as Torre's bullpen management. I especially enjoyed this part of the article:

The session is an egalitarian affair. No matter who you are, you're allowed to worm your way through the crowd and ask a question. From Mike Lupica to stargazing fan-boys from weekly papers, Torre takes on all comers.

But Torre has no time for ESPN. He believes they hammered too much on Roger Clemens for throwing the piece of bat at Mike Piazza during the 2000 World Series. So he doesn't yuck it up with Chris Berman or pop up on SportsCenter. He growls a few words when one of their reporters asks a question, then invariably makes some kind of remark when they walk away.

He also doesn't much like questions about how he uses his bullpen, unless it's from a beat writer. One of the backup writers from the New York Times questioned his use of Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of a tied game a few weeks ago and Torre's response was "You been around much?"

Torre glared at the guy as he answered and kept glaring through the next question, which was asked by somebody else about another subject.

As much as I can get annoyed with some of Joe Torre's in-game decisions, I'm still amazed that he's been able to last this long in the NY pressure-cooker and I think part of that can be traced to the affable nature showcased in Peter's article.