A day after Torre rejected a one-year offer to return for a 13th season, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner spent four hours at Legends Field, where he was joined by sons Hank and Hal, son-in-law Felix Lopez and team president Randy Levine.

"We're going to be interviewing maybe as many as five, six candidates, and we'll see how that goes," Hank Steinbrenner said Friday. "The job, there's been no real decision on that yet. They're going to be real interviews, and probably starting next week."

Bench coach Don Mattingly is the leading contender to replace Torre. Yankees broadcaster Joe Girardi, the NL Manager of the Year with Florida in 2006, is another top candidate. Tony La Russa and Bobby Valentine also could be considered.

A decision is not expected to be announced until after the World Series.

"I would assume it would be after that," Steinbrenner said. "After we do the interviews, we'll be talking about it before we make a final decision."

Hank Steinbrenner watched Torre's news conference in Rye Brook, N.Y., on television. Torre termed the $5 million, one-year offer, with $3 million in performance bonuses, "an insult" but said he was thankful for the opportunity George Steinbrenner gave him.

"Joe handled it with class as expected," Hank Steinbrenner said. "The big thing that I want to make clear, and as everybody does, the offer was genuine. It was not some kind of bluff, it was a genuine offer, and we were genuinely disappointed that he turned it down. That's the truth. It wasn't a ploy. It was a true offer."

Torre said during his news conference that there was only one thing he'd change.

"If I had something to do over again, it's something weird, but it would probably be in Game 2 this year in the division series," he said. "I wish I had gone out the damn mound and had the bugs all over me, where I could have maybe talked the umpires into (stopping) play here for a little bit.

"I sent my trainer out. I got about halfway out, for some reason I'm thinking about trips to the mound, I don't want to get charged. And I figured my trainer could take care of it, not that he didn't take care of it, but you know in retrospect and going back, I wish I'd have been a little more proactive in that area."