It was 20 years ago this spring when Joe Torre took over his first Yankees team amid so much doubt and so many cynical headlines. It was impossible to know the Yanks had hired themselves one of the best men to ever run a team in town when they did that, but they did.

Of course, that anniversary got this mind thinking, and list-making, so here is one man’s opinion of the 10 best coaches and managers in New York’s sporting history. As always, dissenting voices not only are welcome, they are encouraged: michael.vaccaro@nypost.com.

1. Casey Stengel — No other man in baseball history won five titles in a row. No other Yankees manager was more successful in facing up to his franchise player (Joe DiMaggio) and retaining his position, something Miller Huggins could’ve used with Babe Ruth and Billy Martin could’ve used with Reggie Jackson. And all of that is wonderful, but seven championships and 10 pennants in 12 years would put him here anyway. He may have had the most talent. But he knew what to do with it.

2. Al Arbour — It wasn’t just the four straight Stanley Cups, and wasn’t even the 19 straight series the Islanders won — in hockey, that is almost hard to fathom. It’s that every time the Isles were pushed to the brink for the better part of five years they didn’t just respond — you knew they would respond. And so did they. And so, ultimately, did whoever was doing the pushing.

3. John McGraw — Before the Yankees became the Yankees and owned New York, the Giants owned it with an even greater iron fist, and McGraw was the reason why. He ruled city baseball with swagger and flair and one of his protégés — fellow named Casey — paid enough attention that he became a pretty good skipper in his own right a few years later.

4. Bill Parcells — First, you must remember how deplorable the prior 20 years had been for the Giants when Parcells showed up. And there is little argument the ’86 champions — 14-2, then utterly dominant in the playoffs — are the best New York football team ever assembled.

5. Joe McCarthy — The fact is, he probably should have been even better — probably should have had a chance to add Stengel’s championship teams to the seven he won from 1932-43 if he hadn’t sabotaged himself — but McCarthy was the man who inspired other teams to first cry “Break up the Yankees!” For that alone he gets a permanent spot on the list.

6. Red Holzman — He belongs here anyway, and maybe you could argue he deserves a higher spot, and it’s as much for the 43 years — and counting — that have passed since the second of his two titles as for the 24 years that had passed before the Knicks won the first of them.

7. Tom Coughlin — Historians will haggle over the things his team didn’t do in those years they weren’t winning Super Bowls, but that’s like saying George Washington wasn’t much of a general if you don’t count the American Revolution — and come to think of it, the Giants’ upset of Belichick’s ’07 Patriots may well be right there with the Colonials’ upset of Cornwallis’ ’76 Redcoats.

8. Joe Torre — The more time passes, Torre may actually creep higher up this list because winning three straight and four titles in five years — and 11 straight series at one point — is starting to look like a virtual impossibility in the modern game. If the Giants win again this year to make it four titles in seven years, maybe they’re part of a conversation. Otherwise, Torre’s Yankees almost certainly will be the last true dynasty baseball ever will see.

9. Mike Keenan — Yes, Lester Patrick won twice. Yes, Emile Francis ended decades of depression and guided some of the most beloved teams New York has had — hockey or otherwise. But, like Holzman: It wasn’t just that he ended a 54-year drought. It’s that after the Rangers have been on an extended seventy-six year dryspell … with the lone exception the one year Keenan was coach. That’s enough for me.

10. Gil Hodges — Forget the sad what-ifs of his all-to-brief time as Mets manager — beginning with the fact they probably would have won in ’73 and been right there in ’72 if he had lived. He managed the ’69 Mets. Case closed. He’s on the list.

Peter Walsh: I’m a lifelong Yankees fan (61 years old) and don’t believe if the Yankees don’t win it all the season is a waste. The ’70 season was one of the most enjoyable. They finished (a distant) second but had a better record than the defending champion Mets. And in ’72 they were in the race until the last few days. These were more fun than many of the Joe Torre years when making the playoffs was a foregone conclusion and then get bounced in the first round.

Vac: I fear younger generations of Yankees fans will read this letter like it’s written in Sanskrit.

Rich Glanzer: The Yankees are an outrageously priced good team. They may make the wild card and you never know. But you know. They don’t have what it takes now, or any time soon. Unless they commit to a $300 million dollar payroll and Bryce Harper becomes a reality.

Vac: I still think they’ll be as much fun to watch as they’ve been in years.

@JosephHansell: I realize mid-February means many insipid filler columns like “Let’s merge the Knicks/Nets rosters.” I expect better from @MikeVacc

@MikeVacc: Writing columns, thankfully, is like playing big-league baseball. There’s always tomorrow.

Robert Stiskin: I’m a Mets fan and what is this I feel; excitement? Is this what some fans get to feel almost every year? I like it.

Vac: See? Optimism sure beats pessimism every time, doesn’t it?

He seems like a nice enough fellow, so there is no joy in typing this, but I have yet to meet a Knicks fan these past few weeks who isn’t hoping they go even deeper into the tank so there’s no feasible way Kurt Rambis can be the coach next year. Of course, it seems the Knicks are perfectly willing to oblige.

Stunning that the Islanders-Brooklyn marriage doesn’t appear headed to a Bogey-and-Bacall-level love story, isn’t it?

“VINYL” PILOT SPOILER ALERT!!!: I get that characters get killed off shows all the time now, it’s not as shocking as when Gary Shepherd found trouble over the Schuylkill back in the day or when Rosalind Shays hopped in the elevator at McKenzie-Brackman, but still: Did they really have to off the Diceman so soon?

The best baseball book you will read this year is “The Arm” by my friend Jeff Passan, who spent the past few years studying the mysteries of the most valuable commodity in sports. It won’t be available to buy until April 5 but is available to pre-order right this moment, and you would do well to do that at once.