"If you were thinking of retiring, you could never think of retiring if you were offered the New York Yankee job," said Torre, who grew up in Brooklyn, played and managed the Mets in Queens and now will report to work in the Bronx. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime situation. For Billy Martin it wasn't, but it is for me. When you walk into Yankee Stadium, you get goosebumps."

But what about when you walk into Steinbrenner's office?

"When you get married, do you think you're always going to be smiling and have a great relationship?," reasoned Torre, who has been married three times. "I have a wonderful relationship with my wife and we don't agree on things. To have an opportunity to win, it is worth all the negative sides you want to talk about."

Honest, intelligent and personable, the 55-year-old Torre was inundated with questions about Steinbrenner, who did not attend the news conference and did not return telephone messages. He knows Steinbrenner can make his life nightmarish, but like the other 13 people who served as manager under the Boss (some more than once), he thinks he can handle the heat.

"Hopefully, you go out and win, and when you win everybody's happy," Torre said. "I like to see smiles on people's faces. I worked for Ted Turner and Anheuser Busch. Those people are used to winning. They get very impatient when they don't, and I can understand that. I do, too."

In following Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra and Dallas Green as managers of both the Yankees and the Mets, Torre replaces Showalter, who is gone after four years in which he rebuilt the team and earned a spot in the playoffs this season. Now Showalter is being courted by Oakland and Detroit, the managerial posts still unfilled.