Tony LaRussa

From Wiki Gonzalez

Operational instructions for your new Tony LaRussa:

If P then maybe Q too
If Q then not P
If Q then also not Q for more than one inning.

As these instructions imply, TLR has a reputation as more of a calculator than a prototypical blood-and-guts manager.

TLR has been managing more or less continuously in MLB since 1979, first with the White Sox, then for a long time with the Athletics (where he won his only World Series), and currently with the Cardinals.

As a skipper, TLR is disinclined to sit back and let his players play, but rather tries from beginning to end to employ them to win that day's game. This shows up most obviously in his relentlessly slotted bullpen usage, but also less obviously in his roster construction and varying choice of position players to play from game to game.

TLR is apparently anti-Moneyball, despite of his reputation as an analytical type. He is also anti-Ruben Sierra, anti-Jose Canseco, and anti-everything that he feels disrespects the game. He has been accused of engineering brushback wars to protect his players from what he feels are unanswered brushback pitches.

What he loses in terms of media friendliness, grudge-holding, and easiness to get along with, he gains back in terms of a professional, intense attitude and a record of winning baseball. Heading into 2006, he's managed 6 different teams to the best regular record in all MLB, and only had 7 losing records in his 25 full seasons of managing.

In 1991, political writer and baseball fan George Will wrote Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, which broke down TLR's managerial practices for the general reader.

Off the field, TLR is a vegetarian and an animal-rights activist. With his wife, he started a foundation to save pets that would otherwise be killed in public shelters.

[edit] External links

• TLR on baseball-reference.com: player, manager, genius behind ARF