La Russa earns his first real parade
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Tony La Russa is finally going to get his parade.
The man who joined Sparky Anderson as the only managers in 130 or so years of major league baseball to have won a World Series in both leagues doesn't know the time, date or place. Yet.
Finding out the details, frankly, won't even cross his mind until the rivers of champagne overflowing the St. Louis clubhouse following Friday night's 4-2 clinching win over the Tigers and good buddy Jim Leyland have long since dried up. No matter.
La Russa was hardly in a hurry to celebrate when Adam Wainwright's final fastball buzzed past Brandon Inge. He let his ballplayers have the stage, sharing a quick hug in the dugout with his coaches and a long one with his wife, Elaine. Then he walked slowly toward the mound, turning toward the Detroit bench and Leyland and doffed his cap in tribute.
''I'm doing a good job of holding it together,'' he said. ''I'm just bursting. I'm so happy for guys here. We had a lot of guys without a ring and this is an experience they will never forget. The greatest.''
It meant plenty to La Russa, too, but good luck getting him to admit it. Instead, remember the uniform number La Russa demanded in 1996 when he arrived in St. Louis - No. 10 - which just happens to be the same number of championships the franchise now possesses.
La Russa didn't get a parade, at least not a proper one, when he won his first ring in the earthquake-interrupted 1989 Series with an Oakland ballclub that never received its propers, either. That lone win by La Russa's A's was sandwiched between a pair of World Series losses - to the Dodgers in 1988 and the Reds in 1990. And if all you know about the manager is what you've read, you wouldn't know how much that little oversight burns him.
But that's the funny thing about La Russa. All everybody talks about is how smart the guy is - pick up the books ''Three Nights in August'' or ''Men at Work'' - yet what impresses the men who work for him even more is his desire.
''That's one thing Tony preaches,'' Series MVP David Eckstein said afterward. ''We play with a hard mind no matter what the situation is. We keep battling and never give up, and fortunately we came through.''
La Russa goes to great lengths to mask that desire. But just two nights earlier, while the cold, steady rain that forced postponement of Game 3 soaked the playing field a few hundred yards from his office, it was smouldering.
With a handful of sports writers sitting on a couch and some easy chairs scattered around the room, someone asked whether winning this Series would make this his most satisfying season ever. La Russa never gets ahead of himself, either. In any other situation, he'd rather have his molars yanked out, without anesthesia, than answer that question.
This time, though, he looked off in the distance for a moment and then said softly, ''I've never been in a parade.''
La Russa went on to explain that with so much of the Bay Area so devastated in the aftermath of the 1989 quake, a full-blown celebration would have been disrespectful.
Instead, the A's ownership arranged for the team to take a short ferry ride around the bay and stop at Jack London Square in Oakland, where a thousand or so fans shared brief toasts, applauded politely and headed back home. La Russa understood.
What baffled him was how only baseball purists recalled what an awesome blend of pitching, power and speed it was. If it's any consolation, it won't be confused with this one.
These Cardinals staggered into the post-season hampered by injuries, practically begging to be finished off. But after a masterful job by La Russa plugging the holes in his lineup, they leave the Series as the champions with the fewest regular-season wins.
''Most challenging by far,'' centre fielder Jim Edmonds said, when asked to rank La Russa's task, ''with these idiots we got. We got a bunch of wild men on our team.''
