NEW YORK - Yankees manager Joe Torre would love to have Pedro Martinez in his rotation - just as he'd love to have any great starting pitcher.
"Pedro's one of the elite pitchers in baseball," Torre said Thursday before a lecture at SMU. "As a manager, you want all the toys on the shelf, there's no question."
Adding Martinez would be different, though, because he's more than just a staff ace. He also just helped rival Boston win the World Series. And in September, he called the Yankees his "daddy" because of their success against him.
Now a free agent, Martinez and his agents met Tuesday with Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and several other team officials at the club's spring training complex in Tampa.
"I don't know what's going to come of it," Torre said. "Having George meet with him - he doesn't meet with people just for the sake of meeting them. He's certainly thinking in terms of helping our ballclub."
Martinez, who met with the Red Sox in Fort Myers Wednesday, has gone 117-37 for Boston from 1998-2004, winning the AL Cy Young Award in 1999 and 2000.
Sheffield case continues
A federal judge in Chicago refused to dismiss charges against a community activist accused of attempting to blackmail Yankees slugger Gary Sheffield and his wife with a purported sex videotape, and ordered him held in jail.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow brushed aside Derrick Mosley's claim that he just wanted to provide moral counseling to Sheffield's wife, gospel singer DeLeon Richards.
"There is probable cause to believe that this whole issue of counseling and that you were intending to counsel that person was a fraud," the judge said.
During the hearing, federal prosecutors played a secretly made tape of Mosley, 38, telling Sheffield's Chicago-based business agent that he had done "a noble thing" in not trying to sell the videotape on the open market.
The business agent, Rufus Williams, has said Mosley told him that the videotape was sent to him anonymously and that it showed Richards having sex with a professional musician.
D'BACKS: Former first baseman Mark Grace will return as a TV analyst for Arizona next season, agreeing to a two-year contract. Grace interviewed last month for the manager's job that eventually went to Bob Melvin.
EXPOS: Frank Robinson has agreed to a one-year contract to return as manager. But the team's move to Washington is still awaiting approval of the owners and the passage of a stadium financing package by the District of Columbia Council. The owners postponed a planned vote Thursday, although commissioner Bud Selig said he expects the move to be approved by Dec.6.
