Twenty years ago, Mike Mussina yelled at Joe Torre. One future Hall of Famer yelling at another in a moment that lives on in today’s meme culture.
For all the great accomplishments of these two men, this one interaction from an otherwise ordinary regular-season game still finds its way into social media feeds and group messages two decades after it happened. The pitcher orders his manager to get back in the dugout so he can finish the game, and the manager sheepishly obeys and retreats.
Every year there are some teenagers on the Montoursville High School baseball team in Pennsylvania who pull up the clip on their phones and ask Mussina, the volunteer assistant, “Hey coach, what’s going on here?”
None of them are actually old enough to have witnessed Mussina’s furious howl at his manager. So instead of telling stories about what it was like playing alongside legends like Cal Ripken Jr. and Derek Jeter, Mussina ends up entertaining them with the details of the 231st of his 270 career wins and the GIF that keeps on giving.
“It was a memorable moment,” Mussina told MLB.com in a recent phone interview. “I’m not sure I’m really proud of it, but it was memorable.”
Torre chuckled thinking back on the moment because it felt a bit out of character for Mussina.
“He never really showed a lot of emotion other than that grumpy look on his face.” Torre said laughing. “He was a gamer, that son of a gun.”
The whole thing began on May 31, 2006, when Mussina took the mound with a 6-0 lead entering the ninth inning. Scattering five hits over 8 scoreless innings, the 37-year-old right-hander had thrown only 81 pitches, and his 24th career shutout was within reach.
Facing the Tigers' lineup for the fourth turn through the order, Mussina got Curtis Granderson on a soft liner for the first out, but then a throwing error by third baseman Alex Rodriguez put Placido Polanco at second base.
Mussina knew the Yankees' bullpen needed a day of rest after a taxing week, including an 11-inning win the night before. After that game, the 16-year veteran asked his manager how many innings he needed from him the next night.
“Eight from you,” Torre replied. “And then Gator [55-year-old pitching coach Ron Guidry] is going to finish,” he said with a smile.
With one out and the runner on second base and the dangerous Ivan Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez due up, Torre jogged to the mound for a chat. The jog was the manager’s signal that he just wanted to talk and would give the pitcher a chance to get out of trouble.
Still, as Torre jogged back to the dugout, Mussina knew he didn’t have a lot of rope, even with a six-run lead.
Rodriguez lined out softly for the second out, but Ordonez grounded a single to left that scored Polanco and broke up the shutout.
After watching Ordonez’s grounder sneak into the outfield, Mussina began rubbing up a new ball and turned back towards home plate with a look of anger. He started thinking about how quickly this inning had gotten away from him -- the throwing error by A-Rod, the base hit on a hanging curveball and the shutout over, just like that.
That’s when Mussina saw Torre start up the dugout steps again.
“I think it was a culmination of frustration,” Mussina explained. “At that point in my career, I didn’t get many opportunities to finish ballgames, certainly not opportunities to throw shutouts. The combination of the error and the base hit just kind of boiled over, I guess. Joe gave me an opportunity to finish the game, and I blew it. This is all running through my head in a couple of seconds. And then the emotion came out.”
A scowling Mussina stared into the dugout and shouted, “No, stay there!”
He yelled loudly in order to catch Torre before he walked too far out and the pitching change would have to be made.
The startled Torre quickly threw his hands up and said, “OK!” and headed back to his seat in the dugout with a laugh, while his pitching coach Guidry also chuckled in amusement.
“Gator was laughing because he would have done the same thing if he was the pitcher,” Torre said. “It comes back to who you trust. There are certain guys that you take at their word.”
Mussina had clearly earned Torre’s trust, but he also knew that in all likelihood he had only bought himself only one more batter and just one chance to finish the game.
“I better get this guy out,” the pitcher said to himself.
When he fell behind Carlos Guillén 3-1, the complete game was now in jeopardy too. But Mussina came back to strike out the switch-hitter on a breaking ball, his 101st pitch of the night, for the final out.
The 6-1 Yankees victory was the 57th -- and last -- complete game of Mussina’s career.
After the game, Torre had no problem with the rare outburst thrown his way. Mussina sensed that his manager knew where the fire was coming from.
“I told him after it was over, ‘I’m really sorry I did that,’” Mussina recalled. “He was like, ‘Don’t worry about it.’
“He was kind of glad that I still had that [desire], that I want to finish this thing and don’t want to come out of the game.”
That’s the part that really stands out 20 years later, with fewer pitchers being given the chance to finish what they started. There were 57 complete games pitched in all of MLB in 2024 and ‘25 combined.
“It’s just the evolution of the game,” Mussina said. “So when you look at me in Detroit, that doesn’t happen because nobody thinks like that now. To have a starter throw a pitch in the ninth inning is like a triple play, because that’s how often it happens.”
After all these years, the viral moment has done nothing to diminish Torre’s affection for Mussina.
“When I see him at the Hall of Fame, he still puts a smile on my face, so what can I tell you?” Torre said.