The Yankees Hire Joe Torre to Replace Buck Showalter

In 1995, the New York Yankees won the first-ever American League Wild Card and reached the post-season for the first time since 1981. Although the team lost the inaugural American League Divisional Series to the Seattle Mariners, most Yankee fans and sportswriters assumed that manager Buck Showalter would be offered a new contract based on his team's regular season success and impressive playoff performance.

Instead, in a move that surprised and shocked many a baseball follower, Yankees' principal owner George Steinbrenner hired Joe Torre to skipper the club.

It was not a popular move among the New York fans and media. Torre's managerial career had been mediocre at best, and more than a few writers openly questioned the man's baseball intelligence. The back page of the New York Daily News ran a full picture of Torre with a caption that read: "Clueless Joe," a not-too-clever parody on the great Shoeless Joe Jackson. Others called Torre a "yes man" who was installed as a mere puppet so that Steinbrenner could pull the strings and control the club from Tampa.