Joe Torre's somber encounter with Derek Jeter

• Joe Torre stayed with Derek Jeter until he heard the diagnosis of his injury
• Torre says Jeter can't entertain thoughts of his athletic mortality

NEW YORK -- Joe Torre, Derek Jeter's manager for 12 years with the New York Yankees, stood in the club's training room late Saturday night, engulfed by a feeling of helplessness.

There was so much he wanted to say, but like Jeter, he was virtually speechless.

Jeter, diagnosed with a fractured left ankle, was stoic the entire time, Torre said, sitting in stunned silence, and barely spoke to anyone.

"It was pretty sad for me,'' said Torre, who managed the Yankees to four World Series titles. "It wasn't devastating, just sad. He wasn't talking last night. Guys were coming in after the game was over, but there really was nothing to say. He just sat there.

"The fact that he was hurt is one thing, but the fact that he can't be there for them, you know. It sounds hokey, but it's true.''

It's going to be strange today, if not eerie, Torre said, to see the Yankees play their first postseason game Sunday since Oct. 28, 1981, without Jeter or closer Mariano Rivera. There was never a single day in the postseason, Torre said, where he even contemplated resting Jeter, even though he played in pain with a hairline fracture in his thumb in the 2003 World Series, and a wrist injury during the 2004 postseason.

"There was never a time when he was able to walk into the clubhouse,'' Torre said, "that he wasn't going to be in the lineup.''

But this time, Jeter has undergone an injury that he simply can't overcome, just five months after Rivera underwent season-ending knee surgery.

"You know at some point, in the future, they're not going to be here,'' Torre said, "but the way Derek's been playing. …You knew that time was coming, but even though you knew it was going to be that way at some point …

"The reason we won all those years because it was always brand new to them. They never accomplished enough to say, "Look at what I've done.' You don't continue to go to postseason unless that's all you want to do.''

Still, even though their aura of invincibility has ended, Torre said, they can't afford to permit thoughts that their careers are near an end.

"If you're a player, you can't think that,'' Torre said. "If they go out there, they're going to get the most out of the time they spend with each other. And they certainly have.

"I was very fortunate to be here, and to have these guys here at the same time, they certainly have changed my whole professional life. Just being around these guys, I wouldn't trade those years for anything.''

Torre, the umpire supervisor for Major League Baseball, was in the umpires' room when Jeter went down in the 12th inning. He kept waiting for him to get up. And waiting. And praying.

Jeter was carried off the field by trainer Steve Donohue and Yankee manager Joe Girardi. Torre rushed into the Yankee training room and stayed with Jeter until the news was delivered that his ankle was broken.

"When I saw him be taken off the field,'' Torre said, "it told you it was something more than a bruise or something. He's the last guy that wants anybody to make a fuss over. It was just sad to watch.''

"He's in the body, so I don't think it surprised him, the extent of the injury. He's pretty good about keeping things inside. If he lays there for awhile, you know it's more than just getting the wind knocked out of you or a bruise.''

The injury, Torre said, resurrected memories when Jeter dislocated his shoulder in 2003 while colliding with catcher Ken Huckaby sliding into third base in Toronto.

"Toronto was interesting, sort of comical,'' Torre said. "I went out to third base and he turned over and said, "I'll be in there tomorrow.' I said, "OK.'

"So it takes a lot for him to be helped off the field. Any result what the X-rays showed was not really a surprise…It's just such a shock because he's indestructible. It's just one of those things, you never really question, whether he stumbles and falls, whether he's going to play.

"The other day, he's limping all over the place, he can't even stand on two legs, and he's DHing the next day.
"But that's Derek. That will always be Derek.''