NEW YORK - A season that is shaping up to be Joe Torre’s last with the New York Yankees also is proving to be his toughest.

The veteran Yankees manager said Saturday that the 2007 season has been his hardest since taking the post before the 1996 campaign, the New York Daily News reported.

“It’s been the toughest one of the 12 years, no question,” Torre said in comments published Sunday. “My security blanket is the players, because they care and they try. Sometimes they lose direction, but that’s been the thing I cling to all the time — the baseball aspect of it.”

Torre guided the Yankees to four World Series titles in his first five years with the team, including three straight championships from 1998-2000. New York has reached the postseason every year during his tenure with the team.

But that run may be in jeopardy this season, as the Yankees own a meager 44-44 record entering Sunday’s contest against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The Yankees are 10 games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox (55-35) in the American League East Division and trail the Cleveland Indians (53-37) by eight games in the wild card race.

With Torre’s contract due to expire at the end of the season, the Yankees are expected to go in a new direction, thereby ending Torre’s stint in the Bronx on a sour note.

Torre was in danger of getting fired in April had owner George Steinbrenner not been talked out of it after the team trudged to a 9-14 start.  But Torre and general manager Brian Cashman have battled questions about their respective futures all season long.

“It’s a domino effect,” Torre said, the Daily News reported. “Losing is tough enough, but having to explain it when a lot of times you can’t explain it, that’s tough.

“Then you throw in the issue of, ‘Are you afraid of losing your job?’ and all of that, you have to address it and I understand it, but it gets a little old.”

But for all he has faced this season, Torre insisted he has no regrets about returning for one more run at a championship.

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“I’ll never be sorry about that, because I was enthusiastic coming in,” Torre said.  “Just because things don’t fall into place the way you want, you can’t say, ’I wish I didn’t do it.’

“If I didn’t do it, I never would have known.  If I had sat home, I’d have always wondered if I could have made a difference one way or the other.”

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