Re-thinking La Russa

For the past week I’ve been wrestling with the nature of Josh Hancock’s death and what role baseball and or the Cardinals played – directly or indirectly – in it. Were they complicit, enablers or just looking out for themselves? I know it’s much too easy to simply blanket the survivors with easy criticisms in such a complicated course of events.

Nevertheless, it’s hard not be critical of Cardinals’ manager Tony La Russa.

Certainly La Russa has taken a lot of shots in the past week, some have even been fair and thoughtful, while many others seem to be nothing more than piling on. But it is fair to wonder how truly effective a leader of men La Russa can continue to be after Hancock’s death.

Yes, Hancock was an adult and La Russa is not paid to be a babysitter by the Cardinals. In fact, La Russa revealed just today that he had a long discussion with Hancock regarding the pitcher’s drinking as it related to his tardiness three days prior to the fatal accident.

If Hancock would have walked out of the meeting with La Russa and thought to himself, “What a self-righteous hypocrite,” he would have been right. After all, La Russa was busted for DUI on March 22 during spring training. According to the report from the arrest, La Russa was found asleep behind the wheel of his SUV at a traffic light and then struggled to recite the alphabet during a field sobriety test. Currently, La Russa is waiting to go to trial for misdemeanor charges from his arrest.

The Cardinals and MLB are nothing more than pushers of the last legal drug, as alcohol is called by some (and that’s a bigger issue), but La Russa doesn’t set that agenda. His job is to win baseball games and it’s something he does very well. In fact, La Russa seems to have a laser focus on winning games to the point that nothing else matters.

For instance, La Russa has been an ardent defender of Mark McGwire and the allegations of performance-enhancing drug use during the former player’s assault on the single-season home run records. In 2006, after McGwire’s infamous showing before the Congressional House Government Reform Committee, La Russa continued to maintain that his former player was “legal,” which is a bit semantical. McGwire admitted to using then-legal steroid, androstenedione.

“I have long felt, and still do, there are certain players who need to publicize the legal way to get strong,” La Russa told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in March of 2006. “That’s my biggest complaint. When those players have been asked, they’ve been very defensive or they’ve come out and said ‘Whatever.’ Somebody should explain that you can get big and strong in a legal way. If you’re willing to work hard and be smart about what you ingest, it can be done in a legal way.”

Nothing has dissuaded La Russa from believing McGwire was clean.

“That’s the basis of why I felt so strongly about Mark. I saw him do that for years and years and years. That’s why I believe it. I don’t have anything else to add. Nothing has happened since he made that statement to change my mind.”

La Russa managed the Oakland A’s when McGwire and Jose Canseco were the most-feared slugging duo in the game. Canseco, of course, detailed his (and McGwire’s) steroid use in his book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big. But when he played for La Russa, Canseco was something of a “steroid evangelist,” as Howard Bryant wrote in his book, Juicing the Game:

He talked about steroids all of the time, about what they could do and how they helped him. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Canseco put the A’s in a difficult position. The question of his steroid use and the possible use by another teammate, budding superstar named Mark McGwire, grew to be an open suspicion.

Deeply compromised was Tony La Russa. Canseco often spoke unapologetically about steroids, yet La Russa did nothing about it. … La Russa knew about Canseco’s steroid use because Canseco had told him so. Under the spirit of baseball’s rules, La Russa could have contacted his boss, Sandy Alderson, who in turn could have told the Commissioner’s office. That’s how the chain of command was supposed to work, but Canseco was a superstar player, an MVP, and the cornerstone of the Oakland revival. Turning him in would have produced a high-profile disaster. La Russa, knowing that his best player was a steroid user, did nothing.

In fact, La Russa did more than nothing. He not only did not talk to Alderson, but actively came to Canseco’s defense. …

But perhaps the best example of La Russa’s unwavering focus on winning baseball games at the sacrifice of everything else came when he was just beginning as Major League manager for the Chicago White Sox in 1983. Just as the White Sox had broken camp and were to begin the ’83 season that ended with the White Sox winning the AL West, La Russa’s wife, Elaine, called from Florida to tell her husband that she and their 4-year old and 1-year old daughters would not be joining him in Chicago because she had, as detailed in Buzz Bissinger’s 3 Nights in August, been diagnosed with pneumonia and required hospitalization.

According to Bissinger:

La Russa responded to the news with a fateful decision, one that would cement his status as a baseball man but would define him in another way.

Based on a strong finish in 1982, the expectations were high for the White Sox in 1983. But the season got off to a wretched start, mired at 16 and 24. Floyd Bannister was having trouble winning anything. La Marr Hoyt had a record of 2 and 6 and Carlton Fisk was a mess at the plate. In the middle of May, the team had lost eight of nine games. Toronto swept them; then Baltimore swept them. La Russa found himself fighting for his life, or what he mistook for his life. He had a team that was supposed to win, that had spent money on free agents and had good pitching and still wasn’t winning. The only reason he was still around was because of the vision of White Sox owner Reinsdorf, who continued to stand by him. So he did what he thought he had to do: He called his sister in Tampa and asked whether she could take care of the kids so he could take care of baseball.

Bissinger writes that La Russa regretted the decision and has never forgiven himself, but a pattern of behavior that put baseball before anything and everything else was in motion.

I cannot judge whether La Russa could have done anything for Josh Hancock. We are, after all, blessed with free will and the ability to make our own decisions. But it appears very certain that La Russa hasn't done anything different than he had done in the past.

More: La Russa and Cardinals sent wrong message before Hancock's death

Just some baseball stuff

According to some reports, Cole Hamels had 160 strikeouts in his first 25 starts (in 145 1/3 innings or 9.91 per nine innings), which is the second most by a left-hander over that span behind Fernando Valenzuela. Of course this doesn’t include his 15-strikeout performance against the Reds last week, or the six strikeouts he had last night in grinding out the win over the Braves.

Speaking of which, the win over the Braves was interesting for a couple of reasons, but mostly because of the way Hamels bounced back after the first and second innings. In those opening frames Hamels gave up seven hits to the first 11 hitters and, more importantly, three runs in the first inning. From watching on my TV (a set that is both falling apart, but artfully decorated with the post-modern crayon musings by a three-year old boy) and based on conversations from folks in the know, it was clear that Hamels had become a bit unhinged after giving up a home run to Chipper Jones in the three-run first.

Hamels also was a little beside himself during last Thursday’s loss to the Washington Nationals at the Bank when he struggled through 5 1/3 innings for his first loss of the season. Yet according to reports, Hamels was put back on track thanks to a visit to the mound by pitching coach Rich Dubee, who asked the lefty if he was on anything.

Yeah?

“He asked me if I was on anything,” Hamels told the writers. “I wasn't, I just get that way sometimes with my adrenaline.”

As far as the strikeouts go, Hamels only got his first one in the fourth inning in the win over the Braves. He finished with six to give him 43 in his six starts (40 2/3 innings). Only the Padres’ Jake Peavy has more.

***
Also at the top of the strikeout-leaders list is Dodgers’ lefty Randy Wolf, who has 36 strikeouts in six starts and 35 2/3 innings. At 3-3 and riding a two-game losing streak, Wolf has worked into the sixth inning of all his starts, which puts him on pace for 210 innings this season. Wolf needs to pitch 180 innings to have a $9 million option for 2008 kick in.

Speaking of former Phillies, the Dodgers are considering using Mike Lieberthal at third base because of some injuries, poor play and few other options. Lieberthal, of course, has caught more games than any other Phillie in franchise history and hasn’t done anything on the diamond other than squat behind the plate since his junior year of high school.

Whether or not it comes to Lieberthal getting a new glove and standing upright on the field remains to be seen. At this point it seems that the ex-longest tenured Philadelphia athlete is struggling to get used to his new role as a backup catcher. Listen to Lieby tell the Los Angeles Times about the adjustment.

“I miss playing,” Lieberthal said. “That's the best part of the day.”

***
Brett Myers threw nine of his 11 pitches for strikes in his two-thirds of an inning last night.

In his eight relief outings covering 8 1/3 innings, Myers has thrown 154 pitches, compared to 283 pitches in three games and 15 1/3 innings as a starter. I don’t know what any of this means, though manager Charlie Manuel and Dubee believe that Myers is still easing into his new role.

“He's using up a lot of adrenaline right now because it's so new to him,” Dubee told Courier-Post raconteur, Mike Radano.

For some reason it still makes sense to me to have Myers go for a four, five or six-out save on occasion even though Manuel seems to be locked in to using his players in well-defined roles. Until it’s proven to me that Myers can’t be like old-school closers like Bruce Sutter and pitch more than one inning, I’m always going to think it should be an option from time to time.

***
Phil Sheridan of the Inquirer columnized about the death of Josh Hancock and Tony La Russa’s “agenda.” According to reports it appears that Hancock might have been impaired while driving at the time of his accident. Meanwhile, La Russa was arrested for DUI during spring training and still awaits misdemeanor charges.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, La Russa “has declined questions about his arrest since making a brief statement to media hours after being released.” Asked about whether his manager should be more aggressive when dealing with such issues since his DUI arrest, Cardinals’ GM Walt Jocketty told the paper, no.

“Personally, I don't think so. I see how he deals with things. I think he would tell a player, ‘Look, it could happen to anybody. It happened to me. You've got to be careful how you conduct yourself.’”

Either way, it seems to that this would be a good chance for Major League Baseball to do something bold or Tony La Russa to take a stand… or both.

It's all over!

I love the playoffs. I just can’t get enough of it and it will be a drag now that they’re over. Without baseball, sports’ watching on TV reaches its hibernation phase for me. Oh sure, I’ll head out and forage for nourishment every so often, especially when it comes to Big 5 basketball, but for the most part sports viewing is for work.

That means the next time channel 25 (ESPN in these parts) appears on my cable box, the weather will be warmer and the Phillies will be ready to head north.

Seriously, does anyone think I’m going to spend any time watching Chris Berman?

Anyway, the final baseball game of the year revealed a little bit about the Tigers, Jim Leyland, Jeff Weaver, the Cardinals and Kenny Rogers.

Oh yeah?

Well…

It’s a shame when a manager cannot use his best pitcher because the players’ psyche is so fragile that he will not be able to handle the pressure, catcalls or other difficulties of pitching on the road. Leyland would have preferred to use Kenny Rogers and put his 22-inning scoreless innings streak on the line in an elimination game, but he didn’t think Rogers could handle pitching on the road.

Really?

Better yet, Leyland had to map out his post-season rotation so that Rogers only had to pitch at Comerica Park.

Could you imagine Curt Schilling or Pedro Martinez not pitching at Yankee Stadium during the 2004 ALCS because they were too delicate?

Then again, Rogers was the guy who attacked a camera man and pump his fist and carried on as if he just got the last out of the World Series following every out during the playoffs. ESPN's Bill Simmons wrote this about Rogers:

Back to Rogers: Does anyone else believe that he planted that brown stuff on his left hand to deflect attention away from the fact that he fits every possible profile of a steroids/greenies guy? I mean, let's say you just returned from a three-week safari in Africa and I told you, "Yo, there's this veteran pitcher in his early 40s with a storied track record for choking in big games, only now he's working on a 22-inning scoreless streak in October and punctuating each start by screaming after every out and stomping around like a crazy homeless guy trying to clear out a bus stop?" Wouldn't your first thought be, "What's he taking?" Instead, we're worried about some mud on his hand? Somebody make this guy pee in a cup, please.

Hmmm?

Jeff Weaver's breaking pitches were pretty darned good in Game 5. Better yet, Weaver's outing might have earned him a fairly big contract contract this winter, which is pretty good for a pitcher with the worst regular-season ERA (5.76) to win a clinching game in the World Series.

Not bad for a guy bounced out of New York, Detroit, Los Angeles and then designated for assignment in July with the Angels so the team could create a spot for his little brother.

Enough of the La Russa as genius stuff. First, he's just a baseball manager. Just like Charlie Manuel.

La Russa didn't outsmart anyone or himself during the playoffs. He didn't second-guess himself or mull over decisions to the point where he turned smart baseball moves into issues of national importance. Simply, La Russa put his players in the position to perform well.

That's his job.

Though his batting order was different every night, La Russa didn't get too tricky during the World Series or NLCS. When he "benched" Scott Rolen, La Russa said it wasn't for any reason other than the All-Star wasn't swinging well and needed a break.

The result: a 10-game hitting streak in which Rolen went 13-for-37 (.351) with five extra-base hits and nine runs scored. During the World Series, Rolen would have been the MVP if he had driven in a couple more RBIs than the two he collected.

Hopefully no one forget about how good Detroit's Sean Casey was in the World Series. His .529 average (9-for-17) and 1.000 slugging during the series kind of got lost in the shuffle.

Finally, Jayson Stark wrote that the Cardinals are the best 83-win team in baseball history. That kind of makes one wonder where the Phillies would have rated amongst baseball's 85-win teams had they made the playoffs.

Guess we'll never know.

It's Game 4!

More observations from Thursday night's telecast of Game 4 of the World Series:

* Here’s something from Slate that says people dislike the Cardinals because they read Moneyball.

I’m not sure about the argument, though. Tony La Russa might have something to do with people’s dislike of the Cardinals, and around here Scott Rolen may have checkered some reaction to the Cards’ run to the World Series.

* Speaking of Rolen, it might not be too far-fetched to believe he could be the MVP of the World Series if the Cardinals win. After four games Rolen’s batting average is just a shade under .500 and his .813 slugging percentage for an 1.284 OPS. Players with lesser numbers have been named the series MVP.

The drawback, of course, is the RBIs. Rolen has just one in the series, and one in the entire post-season. Excluding pitchers, the fewest amount of RBIs by a World Series MVP are two by Derek Jeter in 2000, Rick Dempsey in 1983 and Pete Rose in 1975.

Perhaps Rolen needs just one more?

* Jayson Stark wonders if La Russa is toying with the Busch Stadium radar guns just to mess with Tigers’ reliever Joel Zumaya’s head.

* This is just a guess, but I would not be shocked if everyone is sick and tired of hearing that John Cougar Mellencamp song on that car commercial. In fact, I’m so annoyed by it that I don’t even know what type of car it’s for. Worse, it is now officially more annoying than Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” car commercial song.

I don’t know what type of car that was for either, but chances are it’s not a car I’d buy.

* ESPN is taking on the ambitious task of adapting Jonathan Mahler’s wonderful book, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning. The eight-hour adaptation, starring John Turturro as Billy Martin and Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner, is supposed to be ready for air next summer.

If ESPN re-creation is half as good as Mahler’s book that documents the summer of tumult in 1977 New York City, it will be well worth sitting still for eight hours to watch the movie.

I’m curious if ESPN will stick strictly with the Yankees aspect of the book or attempt to reach into the political and societal narratives. If so, I’m dying to know who will play Bella Abzug.

* If I were David Eckstein I would be very tired of every talking head pointing out that I’m “little” and “scrappy.” Just once I would like to hear a guy like Eckstein look at an interviewer like Chris Myers and say, “Is that all you can come up with? I’m small? Come on, dude… people out there want your best work.”

* La Russa's move to bring in closer Adam Wainwright for five outs was really smart. Perhaps a starter or two will be in the bullpen as the Cardinals attempt to close it out on Friday night.

* The Cardinals led the Royals 3-1 in the 1985 World Series and the Tigers 3-1 in the 1968 series. They lost both of those. Moreover, in the two previous meetings between the Cardinals and Tigers in the World Series, the team that won Game 4 went on the lose the series.

Hmmm...

In the 1982 World Series, the last time the Cardinals won one, St. Louis trailed Milwaukee 3-2 before winning games 6 and 7.