| 02 November 2011
Imagine having these kind of highlights on your resume:
6 Pennants
3 World Series
70 Postseason victories
Won the 3rd most baseball games in league history over 33 years
Tony La Russa is easily one of the game’s best manager’s we will ever see and at the ripe age of 67 becomes the first manager to ever retire from baseball immediately after winning it all.
When asked why he was retiring when most assume he certainly still has the skill, Tony replied "I think this just feels like it's time to end it. When I look in the mirror, I know I'd come back for the wrong reasons, and I didn't want to do that."
Hit the title/read more to continue reading and see the video on La Russa’s retirement....
He had an unconventional style of managing that always seemed to work. Left hander’s playing third base and pitchers batting 8th instead of 9th were the norm. La Russa was also responsible for revolutionizing the game by making the one-inning closer a standard when he famously gave Dennis Eckersley that role.
Always considered a player’s manager, La Russa never shyed away from the steroid era and was one of the first public figures in the game to embrace Mark McGuire when he hired his former player as the Cardinals hitting coach.
Jim Leyland of the Detroit Tigers said “La Russa was the "total package" as a manager, obsessing over the lineup card, outfoxing opponents during games and refusing to bend to public opinion.”
But perhaps the best part about La Russa’s retirement is that he told the GM of the Cardinals back in August of his decision to retire after the season. This was before the Cards rallied from a 10 ½ game deficit to make it to the postseason and before his team fought back from one strike away twice to win the World Series and help La Russa go out on top.
When he told his players after Game 7, grown men were understandably weeping over someone who has done so much for the game and will probably go down as one of the best managers in the history of baseball.
