Joe Torre is managing the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is about as far away physically from the New York Yankees as possible. And there are five reasons that Joe Torre may be glad to be away from the Yankees:

• Alex Rodriguez
• Cynthia Rodriguez
• Madonna
• Lenny Kravitz
• divorce lawyers

The remaining months of the Yankees’ baseball season will be clouded by the off-field entanglements of Alex Rodriguez. If Alex Rodriguez’s marital problems reach open court, it will be a tabloid dream. It will be one of the highest profile baseball players in a marital dispute, with other celebrities involved. And this plays out in one of the world’s largest media centers. The soap opera that will ensue will overshadow any baseball performance. The Rodriguez personal and legal matters will be questions that every reporter covering the team will have to ask.

Joe Torre might be thankful that he has escaped this latest chapter of Yankee drama. Nevertheless, one has to sympathize with the present Yankees manager, Joe Girardi. It might be a safe guess that, at the beginning of the season, Joe Girardi never wondered about how Madonna would impact his baseball team.

Catherine Forsythe