Joe Torre sits in the Dodger dugout for his second spring game with his new club, trying to figure out who some of his players’ names.

His move from the Yankees to the Dodgers as manager is one of the major transactions of the off-season. The Dodgers hope for a division title and the Yankees wonder what it will be like after 12 years under his guidance – a time when the Yankees were in the postseason all 12 times.

Torre is now removed from the most intense rivalry in baseball – the Red Sox and the Yankees. While he may have enjoyed the competition, he will not be sad about having those games off his schedule.

“It was always such a circus,” says Torre, now looking back from the outside. “There was pressure, but I think more on the players than the managers,” he says.

“I remember a lefty I had in the bullpen, Torre smiles, “and he couldn’t throw a strike when we played the Sox.”

“Terry [Red Sox manager Francona] and I used to talk after every series,” says Torre. “Both of us used to say how happy we were when a series was over and we weren’t going to have to do that for another couple of months.”

While the fans will always eat up the Sox/Yankee games, it was exhausting for both players and managers.

“The games were long,” Torre remembers, “because the players didn’t want to make a mistake and there was so much emphasis placed on those games.”

Torre was a buffer in New York for his players. He held the middle ground when it came to management, owner George Steinbrenner in particular, and assisted in relationships with the press.

He will not have a burden that large in either case with the Dodgers. He comes to his new job with an aura that will assist in his relations with the players, management and the press.

The Dodger players are quick to mention the immediate respect he brings based on his history as a player and manager. That means when he speaks, they listen.

Torre says his work as a broadcaster has proven to be his biggest asset is dealing with the press. On this day he does a quick recorded bit for Atlanta radio as we walk to the dugout.

The engineer running the tape recorder for the Atlanta broadcaster walks away, then says, embarrassed, “I think I just erased that.”

Torre comes right back to do it again. Many managers would just keep on walking. That will make you friends in the media in a hurry.

Management believes they have pulled a coup in acquiring his services. Somewhat ironically, the McQuirks, who own the Dodgers, are from Boston and once tried to buy the Red Sox.

Torre is the third manager in four years with Los Angeles. He follows, yet ironically again, Grady Little who has his own Red Sox connections.

Those connections are far more tenuous then managing the Yankees against the Sox.

That is just fine with Joe Torre.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net