Yankees Honor Joe Torre

I want to hate the New York Yankees. I really do…but I can’t. The team does it right.

There I said it.

Saturday, the Bombers retired Joe Torre’s number 6 making his the 17^th number to have been bestowed such an honor. And to coincide with the number retirement, they immortalized the former skipper with a plaque in Monument Park.

“When you know the neighborhood you are in out there, it is pretty cool,” Torre said. “It is unbelievable. This is the Yankees.”

The celebration at Yankee Stadium for the newly minted Hall of Famer was a star-studded affair featuring a number of Yankees greats (including Reggie Jackson, Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry), players from Torre’s 12 years as the manager of the Yankees and even the wife of Torre’s longtime bench coach Don Zimmer.

Oh…and there were gifts too.

Not only did Torre leave with framed art of both his retired number and that bronze plaque in Monument Park, but he also walked away with a 14-carat “one-of-a-kind career milestone ring” and, to top it off, August 23, 2014 was named Joe Torre Day in New York.

Not too shabby.

But, yeah, I bring up Monument Park and how much I love it (I really, truly do) only so I can openly speculate as to who is standing guard at its hypothetical pearly gates.

With Torre’s inclusion Saturday, he became the 32^nd “baseball member” honored monument or plaque. But, as of late, it seems like they’re just handing them out.

What I mean is this.

Torre’s plaque in Monument Park is the last of five such honors to be handed out in 2014…and the fourth since the end of June. In order, the Yankees have bestowed what Red Ruffing’s son once said was, after being inducted into the Hall of Fame, “the second-greatest honor you can have in baseball” to former South African president Nelson Mandela, Tino Martinez, Goose Gossage and Paul O’Neill. And, soon, you’ll be able to add Bernie Williams and, more than likely, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte to the list.

Yes, you read that right…Martinez and O’Neill are immortalized alongside the likes of three former Popes (for some reason), Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle whereas former favorites Willie Randolph and Dave Winfield are nowhere to be found.