A Red Sox fan offers a cheer for Yankee skipper

   I must have spring fever.
   How else to explain writing in praise of New York Yankees manager Joe Torre?
   Let me back up a few steps. I am a Red Sox fan. I revel in the missteps, passed balls, errors, and strikeouts of those overpriced players in the Bronx.
   When I took the job as managing editor last year, I joked with friends that my one edict would be never to allow anything nice about the Yankees in The Ledger.
   One should never say never.
   Last month, Rider University announced Mr. Torre and his wife, Ali, would receive honorary degrees at the university’s commencement ceremony slated for Friday.
   A Yankee? In Lawrence? Great — now I must cover it in the paper. The sense of dread I felt upon learning of Rider’s announcement was almost as bad as the Red Sox loss to the Yankees in the 2003 American League Conference Series — when utility player Aaron Boone hit a home run in the 11th inning, ending the games and Red Sox fans’ hope for a World Series bid. A wiser Red Sox fan offered a different perspective — at least Rider’s commencement speaker is not He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.
   Given my anti-Yankees sensibilities, the notion that I would praise Mr. Torre, who led various Yankee teams to four World Series championships and several heartbreaking wins over my beloved Red Sox, may be a surprise.
   Mr. Torre deserves cheers from all Lawrence residents, and baseball fans, for his dedication to halt domestic violence — he grew up in a household where Mr. Torre’s father physically abused his wife, and inflicted emotional abuse on his son.
   As the founder of the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation, Mr. Torre put his name behind efforts to stop domestic violence and help survivors heal. The foundation provides educational programs, in shelters for battered women and families, and schools, to teach kids that violence should never be perpetrated against them or their mothers.
   "There’s a whole lot more to life when you realize that you have to be sensitive to each other," Mr. Torre said in a statement on the foundation’s Web site, www.joetorre.org.
   In the macho world of professional sports, Mr. Torre took a big risk with going public about his painful childhood. Instead of a powerful sports figure, fans or players might dismiss him as a helpless victim. By recounting his long struggles to deal with the abuse, Mr. Torre demonstrated how to survive with grace and grit.
   For Mr. Torre’s championing of a cause that too often is denigrated as a merely a women’s issue, he is most deserving of my admiration.
   Come Friday morning, I invite Lawrentians and baseball aficionados to tip a ball cap in cheer of Joe Torre and his efforts to offer hope and resources to families suffering from domestic violence.
   I’ll tip my blue cap – the one with big, red "B" in the center.
Jennifer Potash is the managing editor of The Lawrence Ledger and Red Sox fan, and recognizes the right to exist for Yankee fans.