THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHILADELPHIA - Joe Torre got more out of this season than an NL West title with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He got a chance to prove he could win without the New York Yankees.
"I didn't necessarily feel I needed to vindicate myself. I just wanted to see if I could do it somewhere else," the manager said Wednesday. "It wasn't that I was looking to get out of New York. I just felt it was time to leave because it wasn't as comfortable."
After a drawn-out split with the Yankees, Torre found a perfect fit in Los Angeles. The Yankees offered him only a one-year contract last fall following their third straight first-round exit.
Torre, who will manage the Dodgers against the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL Championship Series starting Thursday night, was reluctant to uproot his family and make the 3,000-mile trek from one coast to the other.
But his wife talked him into the move, and Torre couldn't resist the temptation to show he could still take a team deep into October.
"I think the word is satisfaction, more so than vindication," Torre said. "I was curious, after you're in one place for so long, you're not sure your voice carries to other people."
FORGIVING FANS: Philadelphia fans have a well-deserved reputation for being tough on their own and downright nasty to opponents. But they have a forgiving side, too.
Mitch Williams allowed Joe Carter's series-clinching homer in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series that gave Toronto its second consecutive championship. Williams received death threats and eggs were tossed at his house after that game.
He never threw another pitch for the Phillies.
But when Williams returned to Philadelphia for the first time with the Astros in 1994, fans gave him a standing ovation. Now, he's everywhere in Philly. Williams is a part-time co-host on radio and an analyst on local television.
"If you give everything you got every time you walk out there, these people in Philadelphia will never have a problem with you," Williams said. "I was able to come back here because they knew that. They knew I gave everything I had every time I went out there."
