Joe Torre rejected a one-year contract offer to return as manager of the New York Yankees, turning down a deal that would have meant a pay cut unless the team won next year's World Series.
In a meeting with team officials on Thursday, the 67-year-old veteran who had guided the the Yankees for the past 12 years walked away from the team he led to World Series titles in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000.
But the Yankees lost to Arizona in the 2001 World Series and fell to Florida two years later.
PHOTO: AP
They have not made it back to the best-of-seven championship round since and were ousted in the first round of this month's playoffs.
"We respect Joe Torre," Yankees president Randy Levine said. "He is entitled to his own decision and we respect that. It's now time for the New York Yankees to move forward. We will be doing that very, very quickly."
Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and other team officials met for two days and decided they wanted to keep Torre, whose contract expired at the end of the season.
But the Yankees wanted to spend based upon results.
Their performance-based offer was a one-year proposal for a US$5 million base salary with US$1 million bonuses for each playoff round won by the Yankees next year.
That made the deal potentially worth US$8 million, but would give Torre a pay cut unless the Yankees won the World Series.
The offer also included an option for a second year at US$8 million for Torre if the Yankees reached next year's World Series.
After the offer made on Thursday morning, Torre turned down the Yankees rather than take a deal that would be a pay cut from a three-year deal worth US$20 million that brought him US$7.5 million this year. That sum was more than twice as much as the next-best major league manager's salary for this season.
The Yankees were ousted in the first round for the third season in a row, having lost 13 of their past 17 playoff games despite annually having the highest-priced lineup in Major League Baseball.
Torre was 1,942-1,173 games in 12 seasons as the Yankees manager, second only to Joe McCarthy for the most triumphs by a Yankees manager. The Yankees won nine American League East division titles in a row until Boston broke that streak this year, although the Yankees did reach the playoffs as a wild-card team.
Torre has a career managerial record of 2,067-1,770 in parts of 27 seasons with the Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves and New York Mets.
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