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Nine-time All-Star Joe Torre, the 1971 National League Most Valuable Player and two time American League Manager of the Year, was born Joe Paul Torre, Jr. on July 18, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Joe Torre, Sr., who was a New York City police detective. In 1960, nine years after Joe's older brother Frank was signed by the Boston Braves, Joe Jr. was signed by the Braves (now relocated to Milwaukee) as an amateur free agent. Frank and Joe's father Joe Torre Sr. was a baseball scout for the Milwaukee Braves from 1955 through 1961, and for the Baltimore Orioles from 1962 until his death in 1971. Nineteen-year-old Joe Jr. came up with the Braves for a cup of coffee in 1960.
Frank Torre finished his career with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1963, the year baby brother Joe, a catcher, was breaking out as a star player for the Braves. hitting .293, slugging 14 home runs and batting in 71 runs. Joe was chosen for the All-Star team, but did not appear in the game. The following year, Joe was the starting catcher on the NL All-Star squad, putting up .321/20/109 for the year, with 193 hits and coming in #5 in MVP voting. It was the first of his five 100 RBI seasons. In 1965, he won a Gold Glove as catcher for fielding excellence.
During spring training 1969, Torre was traded by the now-Atlanta Braves to the St. Louis Cardinals for 1967 MVP Orlando Cepeda. IN 1971, Torre won his MVP for his finest offensive season, putting up .363/24/137 with 230 hits and leading the NL in batting average and RBI. After the 1974 season, the Cards traded Torre, now primarily a third baseman, to the New York Mets for Ray Sadecki and Tommy Moore. He was promoted to player-manager in 1977, but quit as an active player half-way through the season to concentrate on managing.
It is as a manager that Joe Torre will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. As a manager, he won the 1982 NL West title with his old team, the Braves, but it was as manager of the Yankees under the mercurial George M. Steinbrenner III that he achieved managerial greatness. From 1996 through 2006, Torre's teams won the division all but twice and made the playoffs for all 13 seasons he has managed the Bronx Bombers (1996-2007). He has won over 2,000 games as a manager (passing Walter Alston for 8th place on the all-time wins list) and almost 1,200 games as Yankees manager in the nearly 4,000 games he has managed. Torre's Yankees teams have won four out of the six World Series he has guided them to.
