Tony La Russa - Baseball Genius or Just Another Asshole?

First we had Tony La Russa’s daughter dropping a Twitter bomb Sunday night by referencing a crackhead and Ron Washington. “I saw a crack head doing “The Wash” today. Coincidence? I think not…”

Devon La Russa has backtracked and that tweet was deleted & followed by: “I really truly did not mean to be offensive! It’s a phrase I use, meant as a joke. Please don’t be offended! Go Cards!!!”

Now comes mom, Elaine, & this from Facebook where Tony’s other daughter Bianca posts:

This isn’t as harsh as implying  that Ron Washington is a crack addict, but it’s an indication of how the   family rolls. The more we see out of the La Russa camp, the more we KNOW these people are assholes.

Both were posted BEFORE last night’s Game 5. Can you say, “Karma”?

La Russa, “genius baseball manager”, is now the subject of condemnation, conspiracy theorizing and ridicule.

La Russa’s curious managerial moves and inability to use a landline telephone to the bullpen have his St. Louis Cardinals on the brink of World Series elimination by the Texas Rangers.

In the pivotal eighth-inning confrontation against [Mike] Napoli, St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa had the wrong pitcher on the mound — lefty Marc Rzepczynski, instead of closer Jason Motte — because, according to La Russa, his request to the bullpen to get both Rzepczynski and Motte warmed up several minutes early was only half-heard. Only Rzepczynski warmed up.

“What happened was that twice the bullpen didn’t hear Motte’s name,” La Russa said. “I don’t know if it was noisy — probably real noisy. They just didn’t hear.”

There would be another more bizarre moment for the Cardinals, later in the eighth, when La Russa brought in right-hander Lance Lynn to face Kinsler, ordering an intentional walk (the fifth of the game), then pulling Lynn for closer Motte. La Russa said that was another miscommunication with the bullpen; he never wanted Lynn to get warmed up, so when the bullpen sent him into the game, La Russa had him issue the intentional walk, then pulled him.

“When you say Motte,” La Russa said, “they heard Lynn.”

Everyone has an opinion, nearly all of them negative, on Monday night’s game.  Baseball writers were left trying to explain what they’d seen and they were getting no help from La Russa, whose explanation was twisty and turny.

Tom Boswell from the Washington Post: “Never say the baseball gods don’t have a sense of humor. And never doubt that they will pick the worst possible moment to play their malicious joke on the most appropriate victim for their tragic-comedy. The explanations that Tony La Russa offered for the late-inning chaos in Game 7? The national media isn’t buying it. No manager of his time has been smarter, more obsessed with tactics and more of a control freak than Tony La Russa. But with the World Series tied at two games apiece and Game 5 tied at 2, La Russa’s whole world of order fell apart. Then, afterwards, as he tried to explain the virtually inexplicable manner in which a series of Cardinals-La Russa screwups had led to a 4-2 Texas victory, it was virtually impossible to tell which story was true, which a friendly fib to protect someone under him and what was still just chaos in the Cardinals. And you thought the fog of war never came to the World Series. Nothing will ever top this.”

Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated: “Really, my head hurts trying to figure out what La Russa did to this game but mostly how he tried to explain it away. It was like being stuck in a gigantic corn maze. Blindfolded. At midnight. After getting spun around 38 times. Every explanation led to another turn that led to another dead end or false exit. The bottom line is he lost the game having a matchup he didn’t want — a lefthander pitching to red-hot Napoli — and he lost his last opportunity by getting a runner thrown out who, while down two runs, didn’t mean anything. I’ve never seen a game even close to this one and I hope never again to have to try to explain one like it.”

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports: “In one night, the Tony La Russa Cardinals became the baseball version of the Nixon White House. Bizarre phone activity. Possible cover-ups.Everything but La Russa kneeling in front of a portrait of Connie Mack and praying as his team crumbled. I’m not about to call La Russa a liar over Bullpen-gate, because I honestly don’t know what the heck happened. All I know is that I have never heard a more mind-boggling explanation from a manager, and this one came after Game 5 of the World Series, for goodness’sake.”

The transcript of his explanation will make your hair hurt.  But read it here if you must. And check out Deadspin’s play-by-play of the eighth inning.

And if you haven’t heard any Tony La Russa jokes today, here’s a good one to spread around the office:

Pilot announces the flight time from DFW to STL is 1:37, or ‘faster than the time it takes Tony La Russa to get his closer into a World Series game’.

Update on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 4:49PM by Bonzer Wolf

Game 6 in St. Louis has been postponed due to rain and will be played on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. CDT.  Game 7 if necessary,will be played Friday night in St. Louis.