I'm just a simple caveman

Wow, this place has been buzzing with activity lately. Looks like the new guy is gonna have to step things up, with some help from Bill Shaikin. There's nothing too horrible in here, so I'm going to cherry pick.

Torre, Yankees Have the same goal

Oh, you mean like winning baseball games?

They had quite a run together, the kindly old manager and his kid boss -- that's boss with a small "b." Joe Torre and Brian Cashman ran the New York Yankees together for a decade, smiling in World Series championship parades, shrugging off bellicose challenges issued in statements under the name of Boss George Steinbrenner.

Bellicose? Hey Bill, this is the sports section, tone it down a little bit. We get it, you've got great vocab.

Cashman was 31 when Steinbrenner tapped him as the Yankees' general manager in 1998. For the first time, Cashman's manager is someone other than Torre, but a deep friendship cultivated over so many years did not evaporate when Torre joined the Dodgers.
"I just hung up with him five minutes ago," Cashman said from his New York office last week.

"Because I wanted him to know it was still his fault that we've been signing every ancient, past-his prime veteran we can get our hands on for the past 7 seasons."

The men could meet again in October, a World Series story line waiting to happen. Certainly, the Steinbrenners and the McCourts have put up the money for a winner: The Yankees' payroll tops the American League, the Dodgers' payroll ranks second in the National League, behind the New York Mets.

Yet for all those bucks -- $209 million for the Yankees, $119 million for the Dodgers -- the playoff fate of both major-market franchises rests largely with kids each making less money than Dodgers pinch-hitter Mark Sweeney.

The Yankees' pitching depends on Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain. The Dodgers' offense depends on Matt Kemp, James Loney, Russell Martin, Andre Ethier and maybe Andy LaRoche or Blake DeWitt.

This is cutting edge stuff. It's true, all of those players will in fact play a role in determining if the Yankees and Dodgers win. There will also be many veterans doing the same thing.

The Dodgers have entrusted their kids, and their season, to Torre.

"He's a great leader," Cashman said. "But you have to have the horses to lead. I know from afar the Dodgers have a lot of young stallions ready to take that next step. If they're looking to take that next step and learn about winning, they couldn't have picked a better person to lead them."

What about Joe Girardi?

To the point that Torre tends to prefer veterans, Cashman offers this counterpoint: Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte.

To which I offer this counterpoint: Randy Johnson, A-Rod, Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi, Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Mike Mussina, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright... wow, I really just listed Jaret Wright in there. Come on though, he was making almost 6 mil a season for a while there. In any other market, that's nutso.

The rest of the piece is just more fluff about managers and young guys, and wanting to win. If it felt like I was reaching with this article, it's because I was. In truth, during the Rockies/Braves game the other day they showed a crazy stat about who has led the NL in BA and RBI since 1960 and my man Joe Torre popped up. They used a picture of him that caught my eye and with a little help from this ol' series of tubes, I tracked it down. His 1966 Topps card:
Which, you have to admit, kinda resembles....



UNFROZEN CAVEMAN LAWYER!!!