All Things Bubba

ESPN and other sources are reporting that Torre is out, Piniella is in. Steinbrenner will reportedly fire Torre on Monday if he doesn't resign first.

Also interesting is that the reports are suggesting it was the "Tampa Cabal" that demanded Melky be inserted in the lineup yesterday. So maybe that wasn't Torre's idea.

Perhaps the most stunning is this from Peter Abraham:

There are reports that Torre will get fired on Monday and replaced by Lou Piniella. If true, it means the following:

● The Yankees become A-Rod's team, not Jeter's. Piniella is an A-Rod guy and if he is the new manager, A-Rod won't be going anywhere. Jeter, Posada, Bernie and Mariano would be furious.

● Brian Cashman is a figurehead and George Steinbrenner and his toadies still run the show.

● The coaching staff will change dramatically. I'm not sure Mattingly and Guidry would stay or whether Piniella would even want them.

● I suspect this may be true. But I also think that Steinbrenner could have reacted in knee-jerk fashion and there is still time for his his son-in-law, Steve Swindal, to get the Boss to change his mind before it becomes official.

● If the Yankees choose A-Rod over Torre, which is what this would be, it's style over substance. Torre has to get some blame for what has happened. But it's not his fault he was saddled with so many one-dimensional players and mercenary types.

I suspect we will all learn much more on Sunday.

Wow. If true, this is a sea-change.

I like Joe, and will be sad to see him go. But it may be time. His greatest strength as a manager is his ability to soothe the egos of the collection of superstars that are the Yankees.

IMO, that's the problem. We need a team, not a collection of superstars. The '90s dynasty (which Torre inherited rather than created) was a team. The guys wearing pinstripes yesterday were just a collection of all-stars.

The team that somehow always found a way to win earlier this year was not the same team as the one took the field in the postseason. It hadn't been the same since the trading deadline, but we didn't notice much, because the Red Sox collapsed like a house of cards and made us look great in comparison.

The scrappy team that manufactured runs and scratched and clawed for wins had guys named Melky Cabrera, Aaron Guiel, Bubba Crosby, and Andy Phillips on it. Guys who weren't multi-millionaires and still had something to prove. Many fans whined about what a laughable lineup we had then, with the likes of Miguel Cairo and Nick Green in it. But they usually won, even when no one expected them to.

No, I'm not saying we need a whole team of that kind of player, but we need a few of them, for balance. They add a spark, an energy, that this old, blasé team badly needs. I'm reminded of something Gary Sheffield once said about Bubba Crosby:

His uniform is dirty. He gives you a boost. When you see a guy out there like Lenny Dykstra gettin' dirty, you want to get dirty, too.

Nobody was really getting their uniforms dirty yesterday.