Joe Torre is of course the former New York Yankee manager who has gone on to positions with The LA Dodgers, Major League Baseball, and now likely a part-owner of the Dodgers. Joe is a New York legend, and his association with the J. H. Cohn firm is well known to anyone in New York who looks up at transportation advertising.
I don't know how big the Cohn accounting firm is. It's not one of the Final Four, but they must have some reach. Joe apparently is a spokesperson for the outfit, and the DVD is one of those casual instructionals on views and techniques regarding "Leadership, Team, Integrity, Resilience, 3 Cs and Strategy." The three Cs apparently are: Commitment, Conviction and Caring.
Joe is seen at a table, nicely dressed in a business suit and tie, wearing an enviable diamond New York Yankee logo ring on the right hand, a nice wedding band on the left, and a multi-function watch that could land aircraft. He's not wearing cuff links, but the interviewer throwing him softball questions and prompts is. The two of them are introduced by the President and CEO of J.H. Cohn, (who is not named Cohn) who looks like he was certainly born sometime during Richard Nixon's first term in office. The president remains off camera, and is only there to get the proceedings started.
It's a perfect business DVD, and a perfect business holiday gift. I'm sure there are companies that have made it required viewing. I asked my son-in-law if he's watched it, and the answer was an easily understood "no." His is a small outfit, and they probably don't need the kind of team building that Joe talks about.
I've had this DVD in front of me for over a week now, and it had to happen. I finally gave it some thought and wondered how Joe compared to my memory and what I read about Casey Stengel, the equally legendary Hall-of-Fame Yankee manager from a completely different era.
I viewed. I took notes. I compared. I wondered how Casey would have been packaged in a DVD if there was such a thing when he was around.
First off, Joe is not funny. I guess this is no surprise to anyone who's followed him, but he really isn't. The DVD and its business, baseball, kinda-like-life metaphors are boring. Dry. Dry as toast in the Sahara.
I wasn't a really formed adult when Casey was in his heyday. I remember him as the Yankee manager and how everyone said they could win that many games and that many World Series if they were the manager, given the players they had and the talent.
Stengel was a talker. He was a reporter's dream interview, if you could stay with him. His leadership style was summed up in his statement that, "There are 25 guys on a team, and my job as manager is to keep the 5 guys who hate me away from the 20 who are undecided."
An example of one of his Cs, Caring, would be his understanding of what went into a player's physical and mental well-being. Always keen to have his players ready for the game he recognized that a ballplayer wasn't necessarily done in by spending the night with a woman, but was surely done in by "spending the night looking for a woman." Joe doesn't address this aspect.
Another one of Stengel's Cs, Commitment, would be his loyalty to his players. When asked by a reporter if he was aware that so-and-so was seen in the hotel lobby at 3 A.M., well past the curfew, and if he was going to say something, Stengel is said to have hardly missed a beat and explained to the reporter that first, he was going to find out if the player was coming or going. He might have been arriving very late, or leaving very early. Get the facts first. Joe touches on this, but not as succinctly.
I remember in the early 70s Casey had something seemingly incomprehensible to say about the Oakland As, who under their owner Charlie Finley were a colorfully dressed team that alternated parts of their uniform colors in their doubleheader games. Stengel went on-and-on about their socks. Their socks were a part of the uniform changes that were made during doubleheaders.
Casey Stengel is hardly mentioned these days. I've seen his name come up in two fairly recent obituaries.
An example of his third C, Conviction, would have to be what he said about Greg Goossen, a catcher who played for many teams and never really lived up to the expectations about his career. In Goossen's obituary the Stengel association was recounted.
"It was Casey Stengel who made Goossen a baseball trivia legend with one remark in 1966. Stengel, having retired as the Mets manager the previous season, was visiting the Mets’ training camp when he pointed at Goossen and was reported to have said, 'Goossen is only 20, and in 10 years he has a chance to be 30.'" Be patient with the talent.
Another recent obituary, for a cartoonist/writer I can't remember, went on about his being sent to the Polo Grounds in New York, the first home of the New York Mets, in 1962, to interview Casey, who was the expansion team's manager. Casey was shagging fly balls in the outfield during practice (he had been a player as far back as 1912 for the Brooklyn Dodgers) and came to the dugout for the interview asking who it was he was supposed to talk to. The cartoonist/writer remembers he asked Casey what could they expect from the Mets this year?
The DVD would still be playing. The writer remembers he never got to ask another question.
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