When Joe Torre was the manager of the last major league team to win back-to-back championships and the New York Yankees faced moments like the Los Angeles Dodgers face now, at the precipice of elimination, he would remind the players how great they were.

“It was always one of the biggest parts of Joe Torre’s speeches,” recalled Paul O’Neill, the right fielder for the Yankees at that time. “He’d say, ‘The talent in this room is good enough to win this.’ When he said it, you believed it.”

The accomplishments of those Yankees teams are presented neatly in the record book, like perfectly boxed museum relics: Those Yankees won the World Series in 1998, 1999 and 2000 — three consecutive seasons, the heart of a dynasty bookended by the 1996 championship and a Game 7 loss in the 2001 World Series. Four championships in the span of five years; five World Series appearances in six years.

But in building that legacy, the Yankees were repeatedly pushed to the brink, and through the long regular seasons and the short intense rounds of playoffs, they intermittently looked older or tired or vulnerable — as the Dodgers have to some rival evaluators over the past 72 hours.

In conversation last week, Torre recounted how the Yankees won 114 games in the regular season in 1998, and suddenly played very tight in the American League Championship Series. As they dropped two of the first three games to Cleveland in the best-of-seven series, he sensed they were more focused on validating their summerlong accomplishment than on the postseason business at hand. Torre called a meeting and remembers saying, “Guys, you got to have some fun. You’re trying to prove the 114 wins are not a fluke.'” After the meeting was over, O’Neill found Torre and said, “Skip, it’s not fun unless you win.”

In 1999, Torre left the team to be treated for cancer and the Yankees played listlessly in his absence, drifting into second place before rebounding. At the end of the 2000 regular season, the Yankees lost 15 of their last 18 games and each of their last five games, clinching only because the Boston Red Sox had lost a game — and Torre had to remind them to celebrate, to recognize an accomplishment built over the long season. In the division series against Oakland, the Yankees lost Game 4 in Yankee Stadium and flew across the country overnight to play a winner-take-all Game 5. They won, barely surviving an A’s team that seemed younger, faster, better. In the end, there was another championship parade, another foundational piece in a legacy.

Whether the Dodgers can respond similarly and become the first team in a quarter century to win back-to-back titles will be decided in the next two days. Like those Yankees teams, they are loaded with stars, some future Hall of Famers, and so much postseason experience that its impact is tangible. O’Neill explained that through the dynasty, Yankees players learned to trust each other and believe that in tough moments, they would respond, individually, collectively. “You just come to believe everybody will do their part,” said Darryl Strawberry, part of the Yankees’ championships in 1996, 1998 and 1999.

David Cone was a leader on those teams and believes that the pitching was a separator for the Yankees, a backbone of the success. “Overall pitching, and Mariano [Rivera] at the back end of games,” he wrote in a text. “We really had four No. 1 starters, similar to the Dodgers’ rotation.”

Roger Clemens, part of that rotation in 1999 and 2000, noted the inherent good fortune required to repeat as champions, avoiding the injuries that can take down a team. “Throughout the season, you use 50-plus players just to get through the marathon of the year,” he texted. “Once you have the pieces like the Dodgers have, it’s about executing and taking advantage of opportunities that arise in each game.”

Strawberry said, “You’ve just got to keep your focus. That’s not always easy.

“Joe always reminded us how good we were, and to keep a foot on the gas.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has a long-standing friendship with Torre, who reaches out to him from time to time, checking on him, encouraging him. Under the circumstances, it’s possible that Roberts’ words to his team before Yoshinobu Yamamoto takes the mound for Game 6 of the World Series will echo a lot of what Torre said in his years as the Yankees manager.

In Torre’s first year as Yankees manager, he told the players, “I don’t want to win one World Series. I want to win three in a row.”

Torre recalled, “I said that just to let them know, ‘Once you win, that’s fine. But you have more work to do. I don’t care what line of work you’re in: Once you stop to admire what you’ve accomplished, you stop doing it.”

The 2025 Dodgers may have reached that crossroads, and as Torre did, Roberts could remind the Dodgers how extraordinary they’ve been and how they have more to do. Heritage construction can be — and must be, at times — a messy business.

A “significant” step has been taken in establishing a national restorative justice programme for victims of the Post Office’s Horizon IT scandal.

Children of affected postmasters, as well as those directly hit by the faulty accounting software, will be part of the partially Fujitsu-funded programme, as the UK’s Restorative Justice Council acknowledged more than financial compensation was needed.

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Data from the Fujitsu-made Horizon computer program led to the wrongful prosecution of more than 700 postmasters for theft and false accounting, while many more racked up large debts, lost homes, livelihoods and reputations as they borrowed heavily to plug the incorrectly generated shortfalls in their branches.

As part of the inquiry into the scandal, its chair, Sir Wyn Williams, recommended the government, the Post Office and Fujitsu engage in a formal restorative justice plan to provide “full and fair redress

Restorative justice aims to repair harm by bringing together victims and those responsible.

Long-sought family involvement

On Thursday, the Restorative Justice Council (RJC), which runs the project, said it would expand engagement to children and families of victims.

The move marked “a significant advancement in the establishment of a national restorative justice programme for those impacted by the Post Office Horizon IT scandal”, the body said.

Relatives have long sought acknowledgement and support for the harm they suffered.

Some have told Sky News how their eating disorder escalated due to the prosecution of a parent, and they carried trauma for decades.

Calls for a family fund were made to redress the “chances that were taken from us growing up”.

What’s involved?

Online listening sessions for children of those affected and people previously unable to attend are planned in an effort to ensure all voices contribute to the restorative justice programme.

Also involved in the initiative is equipping the government (via the Department for Business and Trade), Post Office and Fujitsu “with the necessary skills and knowledge to engage in restorative dialogue with integrity”, the RJC said.

Group-based sessions with organisations involved in the scandal and a confidential safe space service for affected people to share their experiences and explore healing without the pressure of a formal process will be created.

Freelance restorative listeners are being recruited by the service for this purpose.

The formation of the scheme acknowledges the limitations of financial redress, with the RJC saying “true restoration requires truth, acknowledgement, accountability and meaningful action beyond financial compensation”.

The funding question

The restorative listening and wellbeing service is being funded by Fujitsu.

It comes amid questions as to the contribution of the Japanese multinational to redress.

Fujitsu has said it is “morally obligated” to contribute to the costs, but the extent would be determined by the outcome of the Horizon scandal public inquiry. Further inquiry reports are to be released in the coming months.

The Post Office is government-owned and so it’s taxpayers who fund victim payouts.

What next?

The RJC initiatives are pilot schemes for now.

Feedback from them is intended to shape the design of a full, long-term, national restorative justice programme, due to launch in April.

An updated report on restorative justice for Post Office victims will be published in January.

“The next phase is about translating their voices into real, restorative action – ensuring that healing, accountability and cultural change progress hand in hand,” said RJC chief executive Jim Simon.

So far, 145 individuals have been involved, with an extra 200 postmasters expected to be engaged between November and March.

“Engagement is good and continues to grow,” Mr Simon said.

Tesla is acting dumb in a court case related to a fatal crash, and a judge is having none of it. The automaker is being sanctioned for ‘willful’ and ‘deliberate’ discovery violations.

The civil wrongful death lawsuit was filed by the families of Nicholas Garcia and his 19-year-old passenger, Jazmin Alcala, who died when Garcia’s 2021 Tesla Model 3 crashed after hitting a hump in the road while speeding through an intersection on September 13th, 2021.

The lawsuit alleged that the crash was caused or aggravated by a Tesla defect and/or improper repair, as Garcia had brought the vehicle to Tesla for service due to steering and suspension issues just days prior to the fatal accident.

Tesla had a safety recall regarding suspension issues with 2021 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles.

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The case has been in litigation for 3 years, but it is stalling due to issues arising during discovery. Plaintiffs have complained that Tesla is lying and purposely misleading to avoid sharing data and documents that the court compelled Tesla to supply.

Now, a Florida judge has officially sanctioned Tesla, finding the automaker “acted willfully or with contumacious and deliberate disregard” for two separate court orders in the wrongful death lawsuit.

The blistering 9-page order, filed by Judge Michael A. Robinson on October 24, 2025, grants the plaintiffs’ first motion for sanctions and details a stunning pattern of misrepresentation and obstruction by Tesla’s legal team.

The judge granted the plaintiffs’ motion and ordered Tesla to pay all of the plaintiffs’ “reasonable attorney fees and costs” related to the misconduct, including fees for experts to review the documents Tesla dumped on them at the last minute.

Here are the judge’s most damning findings:

The judge found Tesla directly violated a November 6, 2023, court order compelling it to produce documents related to “real-world driving situations,” including driving over “speed bumps” and “uneven surfaces”.

• Tesla’s “False Claim”: At that 2023 hearing, Tesla’s counsel represented to the court that it had “already produced all documents responsive”. Tesla then produced “no additional testing documents… over the course of the next year”. The judge found this was “falsely or inexplicably” untrue.
• The “Sine Wave Test”: The judge found Tesla’s conduct “particularly troublesome” because it withheld documents for a “Sine Wave Test,” which he noted was “substantially similar to the crest in the roadway that was involved in the subject incident”.
• The “Not Credible” TIR Story: The court found that Tesla’s testing protocols required the creation of “Test Incident Reports” (“TIRs”), photos, and videos. Yet, on June 12, 2025, Tesla’s counsel responded in writing that Tesla “did not locate any TIRs”.

The judge was ruthless in his words regarding the TIR situation:

“The Court finds Tesla’s claim that it did not locate any TIRs, is not credible and appears to have been a willful and/or intentional misrepresentation.”

It’s not the first time Tesla has been accused of misrepresentation when releasing documents related to crash data. Earlier this year, plaintiffs in another wrongful death lawsuit related to a crash on Autopilot made similar complaints – the Benavides case. They ended up winning the lawsuit in trial with a $243 million verdict against Tesla.

Back to this case, the court found that “Tesla was in fact in possession of thousands of pages of TIRs”, and its own witness, Adam White, later testified they “can be easily located… by simply clicking on the hyperlinks.”

Eventually, Tesla did provide documents, but the judge ruled that the automaker’s legal team had produced about 123,000 pages of “virtually useless” documents just four days before the sanctions hearing in July.

The judge wrote in the sanction judgment:

“The Court further finds that Tesla has intentionally stripped all metadata and file names from the 123,000 plus pages… making them virtually useless to the Plaintiffs… The Court finds these acts were intended to make the review and use of these materials more difficult, time consuming and expensive for the Plaintiffs.”

The judge also had issues with Tesla’s witnesses. The automaker appears to have only made available witnesses who weren’t equipped to answer questions.

For example, Tesla produced Mr. Daniel Wood, who himself admitted that the engineer “personally responsible for the stability control” would be better suited to answer the question.

The judge found: “No such engineer was ever designated… and this Court finds this is a direct violation of its September 20, 2023 order.”

For now, Judge Robinson is only ordering Tesla to pay fees for its violations of the court orders, but it issued a strong warning to the company:

“Finally, continued violations of Court orders… may cause the Court to impose critical and severe sanctions against the offending party, including… striking pleadings or defenses.

The next hearing in the case is set for November 13th.

Electrek’s Take

There’s now a clear pattern of Tesla using questionable tactics to withhold critical information in court cases.

In this case, it’s now clear it won’t work, as the judge is having none of it. This might push Tesla to settle, as it clearly doesn’t want to release details of its test incident reports, which include what detailed findings in specific incident cases.

The Benavides case changed everything.

People are starting to catch up to Tesla’s dirty tricks, and they know exactly the data that the automaker collects. It’s only fair that both sides have access to that data in those legal battles.

This new case in Florida referenced the Benavides case regarding Tesla playing dumb in the discovery process. It’s going to be harder and harder for Tesla to do that.

It does look like Tesla’s position is becoming weaker with each legal case, and as we previously reported, the floodgates are open now, and the lawsuits are piling up.

We know of at least three more lawsuits against Tesla set for trial by the end of the year, if they don’t settle before then.






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