The 24-hour Colts vs. Patriots coverage on the major sports networks was interrupted by America’s pastime last week with the introduction of Joe Girardi as the new manager of the Yankees and Joe Torre as the new Dodgers skipper. Football and the NBA generally force baseball to the backburner at this time of year, but these are not your usual obligatory offseason manager hires.

Torre may be one of the greatest managers the game has ever seen, and Girardi has the daunting task of replacing him as the leader of the most successful franchise in baseball history. Expectations are high in both cities, especially in New York where Girardi is welcoming the challenge before him by choosing the pinstripe jersey number of 27, which would be the championship count for the Bronx Bombers should Girardi guide them to a title.

Expectations are also high in Los Angeles considering Torre was so successful with the Yankees; Dodgers fans will be expecting much the same for their franchise. He should have more leeway than Girardi in New York, however,four world titles never looks bad on a resume and with the dominance of USC and Kobe up to his usual antics, the Dodgers will be off the radar screen for a while.

Girardi should be under the gun from the very beginning and for good reason. If you let the most successful manager of the last decade walk away for Girardi, then he better be pretty good. What makes the impossible task of replacing Torre even more difficult is the fact that the Yankees arch rival, the Boston Red Sox, claimed their second World Series title since 2004. That is not sitting too well with Yankees fans right now.

Unfortunately for both men, these two proud franchises are not what they used to be, and if both teams continue to struggle, it will be the managers that take the blame, which is completely unfair. Managers are given too much of the credit when the team is playing well and too much of the blame when things are going wrong. Sure it’s the responsibility of the manager to put his players in the best possible position to win, but then it is up to the players to do the job. Before Torre arrived in New York, he had mixed results as a Major League manager including a 351-354 record with the St. Louis Cardinals before being fired in 1995. Did Torre suddenly learn how to manage once he arrived in the Bronx? Of course the answer is no; the difference this time around was that he had championship caliber players. Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and company will make any manager look better.

This is not to say that Torre had nothing to with their success. Managing the egos in that clubhouse is an accomplishment in itself. When things started going bad for New York was when the front office, specifically Brian Cashman, became obsessed with acquiring overpriced, aging talent and giving up talented minor league prospects in the process. This strategy works well in acquiring talent for the batting lineup but becomes detrimental to the pitching staff. There just are not that many pitching aces available on the open market from year to year and when pitching is available it is often overpriced, past its prime, and an injury risk (see Carl Pavano, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Randy Johnson). This was the reason for the depleted pitching staff that Torre was faced with over the final few years of his tenure and which led to the failures of his team under his management.

Enter Joe Girardi. Good Luck. This team should be greatly depleted from the 2007 version. I am sure that Wilson Betemit is a talented player but it just feels wrong mentioning him in the same sentence as the man he is replacing, Alex Rodriguez. Granted, Rodriguez was never embraced by true Yankees fans because of his annual absence in the playoffs, but he was a huge reason for their regular-season success. Pettitte, Clemens, Posada, and Rivera also look like they may be headed out of New York. The Yankees spend money better than anyone and will undoubtedly fill some of the many holes on the team, but the pitching staff is in dire need of improvement and that may not be possible right away.

Chien-Ming Wang is already in the fold and they think Phillip Hughes will be good, but then what? There are not a ton of top prospects waiting in the wings and the free agent market looks very thin. It could be a few years before the pitching is where the Yankees would like it to be, and Girardi may not have that long. He did a tremendous job in his short time with the lowly Marlins but managing in New York is a completely different beast, especially with sub-par talent in the pitching staff.

The winner in this whole situation may just be Torre. Most do not believe the Dodgers are World Series or even playoff bound in the upcoming season but Torre is blessed with talented young players that could make the Dodgers a serious contender down the line. James Loney and Matt Kemp look like they could be in the middle of the Dodgers batting order for years to come and young studs like Chad Billingsley and Jonathan Broxton add depth to an already talented pitching staff led by Brad Penny. Most importantly for Torre, he gets to escape the New York media and their constant badgering about the security of his job.

As strange as it is to say, it appears as if it may be a long season in New York especially because they share a division with Boston Red Sox, who do not appear to be getting worse any time soon. It may turn out that the Steinbrenners did Joe Torre a favor by offering him that insulting contract they knew he would turn down. He comes out looking like the good guy while letting the Steinbrenners, Cashman, and the rest of the Yankees organization to deal with the overpriced, underperforming roster they put together.