New face of Dodgers not your average Joe

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Joe Torre isn't Los Angeles' typical transplant from New York. Three days before being named Dodgers manager, he discussed the rumors of his new job on David Letterman's show. And the day after the team returned from spring training, Torre sat down with Jay Leno, receiving his hero's welcome. If Torre is as uncomfortable with his celebrity status as he often says, he has a funny way of showing it. He jokes that his nose must be the cause of people doing double takes when he walks the street. Beginning with Monday's opening day at Dodger Stadium, Southern Californians will have an opportunity to stop and watch Torre work his magic. It's not as if he's unrecognizable without Yankees pinstripes. But Torre has layers to him, and just as he said about the players whom he couldn't tell apart in street clothes early in the spring, it will take time for everyone to get acquainted. "They may know about me, but I'm not sure they know me," he said. Torre, 67, is signed on for the next three seasons to bring postseason baseball back to LA and turn around a talented team that last season finished fourth in its division with a clubhouse divided among veterans and young talent. He brings such an impressive resume -- 12 consecutive years making the playoffs, 10 division titles, six American League pennants and four World Series titles -- that in his brief time in LA, people have told him thanks for coming. "The way they talk about me, I don't think I can live up to what they think I am," Torre said. Expectations certainly aren't what they were in New York, where the spring after the Yankees lost Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, a fan told him, "We'll do better this season." But the standards remain lofty for a franchise that hasn't won a playoff series in 20 years. "What Joe brings that is invaluable is that he personifies that we are serious about a culture of winning," owner Frank McCourt said. Challenges already have arrived. Torre had his left knee replaced in the winter, lost right-hand man Don Mattingly, who resigned as hitting coach before the spring, and saw his top three third basemen suffer injuries that will keep them on the disabled list to start the season. The real comfort zone for Torre, the self-described slow-footed former catcher, is in the clubhouse with his players. "He's good at adapting to them as opposed to them adapting to him," said bullpen catcher Mike Borzello, who previously served under Torre for his 12 seasons with the Yankees. "He treats you like a man until you should be treated otherwise. He's very trusting, but if you lose his trust, it's hard to get it back." With the Yankees, the divorce was messy, the result of seven straight seasons without winning a World Series. Torre didn't appreciate being offered a lesser contract laden with incentives, explaining that his motivation for winning didn't need to be questioned. And while Torre says "I was over the Yankees stuff this winter," he still uses Yankee-speak, often citing Yogi, Zim and Georgie (Posada, not Steinbrenner) in explaining the new Dodgers way. Juan Pierre was even compared to Bernie Williams. And Torre instituted a Yankees rule of keeping hair to a decent length, necessitating a new 'do for previously shaggy reliever Joe Beimel. To Beimel, it revealed a little something about the Dodgers' new leader. "He came to me and definitely went about it the right way," Beimel said. "It wasn't like a dictator commanding me to cut my hair. He asked if I'd cut it. I said yeah. "He's not going to come in here and rah-rah and get you to run through a wall. He's always on an even keel and wants the team to take on the same personality."(Contact Diamond Leung at dleung@PE.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)