They weren’t anyone’s Boys of Spring, much less Boys of Summer, and on the 20th anniversary of the birth of the last Yankees dynasty, Joe Torre remembers it all, remembers them all.
He was greeted in spring training 1996 at Legends Field as the clueless, journeyman afterthought manager, as far as you could get from Cooperstown, and Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera had yet to begin their iconic march to Monument Park, and there was no Core Four.
In fact, there was trepidation about the rookie shortstop who wasn’t even Mr. March, much less Mr. November.
“I never saw any evidence that he was worried about being sent out or whatever,” Torre recalled over the phone.