[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
Torre is in the last year of his contract. The general thought last year was that 2004 would be Torre's last season managing in New York regardless of what the results are.

Torre signed a contract extension during spring training.

I think it keeps him in NY thru 07, although I could be wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

It looks like you're right.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4407948

NBCSports.com news services
Updated: 1:20 p.m. ET March 5, 2004

TAMPA, Fla. - For now, Joe Torre likes George Steinbrenner’s offer better than Arnold Palmer’s. The New York Post is reporting that the New York Yankees are on the verge of signing Torre to a two-year contract extension worth up to $16 million.

The New York Yankees manager was on a boat with the golf great in January, looking at whales in waters off Maui.

“He invited me to play golf with him over at Bay Hill,” Torre recounted Thursday, referring to the Florida golf course where Palmer hosts a tournament each March.

Of course, with spring training coming up, Torre turned him down. But, thinking ahead, Torre knew he was about to start the final season of his contract, and his relationship with Steinbrenner was strained throughout 2003.

“After this year, maybe I’ll be able to take you up on that,” Torre said to Palmer. “This could be my last year. I’d be able to retire.”

“Retire? How old are you?” Palmer told Torre.

“I said 63.”

“He said, ‘I’m 74. What does that have anything to do with it?”’

Torre started to think about managing New York beyond 2004, and Steinbrenner approached Torre when the manager arrived at spring training and asked about 2005.

“The thing that certainly opened the door to come back here was how George, the Yankees, initiated the whole concept,” Torre said before New York opened its spring training schedule with a 5-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Steinbrenner has directed his son-in-law, general partner Stephen Swindal, to handle negotiations. The sides have talked about a two-year extension through 2006.

“I have said many times this spring how much I want Joe to come back,” Steinbrenner said in a statement. "It’s in Steve’s hands.”

Torre met with Swindal earlier in the week to begin negotiations on a contract extension.

“I am very encouraged that things are going well,” Swindall told the New York Post. “We have clearly made progress. He has made strong indications now he wants to manage the Yankees beyond this year and we want him back unequivocally.”

Torre has led the Yankees to four World Series titles and six AL pennants in eight years, their best success since the early 1960s, but Steinbrenner has grown antsy since New York’s last Series title, in 2000. Torre’s face showed strain last year, and he was angry when Steinbrenner overruled him and sent Jose Contreras to the minor league complex in Tampa rather than Triple-A Columbus.

“The stress, I think, last year wasn’t baseball. It was everything else,” Torre said. “I wasn’t having any fun. I was just wondering if this where I wanted to be, this is where they wanted me to be”

When Steinbrenner hired Torre in November 1995, it was the team’s 20th change in managers since he bought the Yankees in 1973. Torre’s tenure was been remarkable — he will be the first person to enter his ninth straight season as Yankees manager since Casey Stengel lasted from 1949-60.

Before last year, his relationship with Steinbrenner was good.

“I knew when I came here what it was like,” Torre said, “You don’t handle George — I don’t try to handle George — but we had more communication. We didn’t necessarily agree, and I don’t expect to continue to only agree, but last year, it became a little confrontational, and I didn’t like that.”

Then came that Feb. 18 conversation with Steinbrenner.

“It surprised me that early on, that George would come in and say, ‘What do you want to do next year?’ All of a sudden, my whole thinking had to change,” Torre said.

Steinbrenner and Torre have had several productive conversations since.

“Not that he’s not going to say something that may be against what I think, but I don’t think it’s going to get to the point where it got last year,” Torre said. “I think it will be kept more in-house, so to speak.”

Torre didn’t ask Steinbrenner to apologize for the events of 2003.

“I’m not looking to have any guarantees,” he said, knowing that Steinbrenner’s managers never get any. “I got my point across to him how difficult it was last year with the lack of understanding that we had, and I didn’t like that, and he acknowledged that.”

Torre’s decision also may cause pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre to change his mind about retirement. Stottlemyre wavered about coming back for this year until November, saying he felt “personally abused” last year. Still, he’s loyal to his manager and close friend.

“I won’t think about it until toward the end of the season,” Stottlemyre said. “A lot of it depends on what he does, no question.”

Some players have noticed a change in Torre this spring, especially since last month’s acquisition of AL MVP Alex Rodriguez.

“He rejuvenated himself. He seems up to me, bouncing around,” first baseman Jason Giambi said. “You can tell he’s really excited for the year.”