MAJOR LEAGUE
Tony La Russa’s genius as a manager will be debated for decades. Not so his exit.
“What a way to go out,” Washington Nationals manager and sometimes-rival Davey Johnson said, summing up what just about everybody in baseball was thinking.
Great entertainers talk about leaving with the audience wanting more, and La Russa did that. He could have been back managing in St Louis, Missouri, next year if he desired, or anywhere else for that matter, for as long as he wanted. His resume hardly needed updating.
In his 33rd season, he just notched his first Game 7 and his third World Series title, once again validating the thousands of wins that already staked him to a comfortable third place on the all-time list. He’s been described as a pioneer for using computers before they were fashionable in baseball and credited with developing the modern bullpen and creating the one-inning closer, starting with Dennis Eckersley in Oakland about two decades ago. More impressive, perhaps, La Russa was still tinkering with conventional wisdom as recently as the final few innings of Game 7 on Friday night, mulling over a very risky scheme to move right-handed closer Jason Motte to the outfield for an out or two — in case he needed a left-handed reliever — and then putting him back on the mound.
La Russa’s reputation for innovation, though, cut both ways. Some of the same people who lauded him for heralding the dawn of the statistical age in baseball turned on La Russa for dragging his feet once “Moneyball” became all the rage. Others argued that being a control freak may explain how La Russa won two Series rings with less-talented squads in St Louis, but also failed to win more than one in Oakland, where he presided over teams bristling with individual stars and unchecked egos. What was often overlooked by both sides in the debate was how desperate La Russa was to win every time out regardless of tactics. Tigers manager Jim Leyland was one of several confidants who believed La Russa, a lawyer who has never practiced, got his degree mostly to see if he could finish atop his class.
“Look, we all want to win. It’s the business,” said Leyland, who first ran up against La Russa as a minor league manager in 1979, then went to work for him and remains one of his closest pals. “But Tony wanted to win in spring training. He wanted everything done right from the start, and he’d manage spring-training games like it was the regular season. He’d be -pinch-hitting, making double-switches, making sure every guy on the roster got some time in, whatever it took — and that was in spring training.”
Somewhere along the way, Leland said, everybody else in the business takes a game or two off, surrendering to fatigue, indifference or other distractions. Not La Russa.
Asked to describe his friend and rival with one word, Leyland said: “Relentless.”
“It’s like he was born to manage,” Leyland added a moment later.
That will to win cut both ways, too. La Russa’s Oakland teams turned out to be an incubator for baseball’s steroids era and former Athletics slugger Mark McGwire was the star of La Russa’s first few St Louis squads. He’s been notoriously loyal to every one of his ballplayers, but he’s defended a handful or so beyond all doubt. That may have burnished his reputation inside the clubhouse; outside, it’s a tarnished spot on an otherwise impeccable career.
However, controversy never stopped La Russa, nor did it slow him. He became an outspoken advocate for the animal-rights group, PETA, and turned up at Glen Beck’s “Restore America” rally last year with slugger Albert Pujols, who was getting an award.
Leyland said people who think La Russa worries about being second-guessed are wasting their time. Being unafraid to follow his convictions, in fact, might be La Russa’s greatest strength.
“I think you can make a case for him as best of all time. Absolutely,” Leyland said. “Why? The total package.”
“He was a tremendous tactician during the games. His teams were always prepared before the games. He never had a problem talking about what he’d done after the game. People see that now, but what a lot of them don’t know — or don’t remember — is he was the same way starting out as a manager,” Leyland said.
A moment later, Leyland recalled a statement he credited to former Boston manager Terry Francona, though it’s been around baseball forever.
“He used to say: ‘If you manage for the guys in the seats, pretty soon you’ll be sitting with ’em,’” Leyland said, adding with a chuckle: “Tony never worried about that stuff. It’s a good lesson for managers.”
And hardly the only one.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier