La Russa creates, then downplays, clubhouse rift

[Boomcoach]

Has LaRussa ever been successful without having players at the forefront of PED use?

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Boomcoach

Has LaRussa ever been successful without having players at the forefront of PED use?

Yes.

[Boomcoach]

Originally Posted by The Game

Yes.

Not in Oakland or St Louis.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Boomcoach

Not in Oakland or St Louis.

Who else, other than Big Mac, in STL used steroids?

[Michael Hopcroft]

Originally Posted by The Game

Jerry hired him to right the wrong of him being fired by Hawk in 1986 and because he wanted a proven winner to manage this team. To teach discipline, something they lacked under Ricky.

I get that -- sort of. But that firing was 35 years ago. Almost all the roster wasn't even alive when Larussa managed the Sox. But its only been ten years since his last championship in 2011 in St. Louis. How could I have forgotten that team?

Still, the league is very different now from what it was in 2011. My fear for the Sox is that he is already in the process of alienating some of his best young players, and that rarely ends well.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

If LaRussa cared primarily about wins and losses he'd be in the severe minority of major league managers, who mostly care about a. not getting fired, and b. being able to find the next job if/when they do. That might sound like wins and losses but it's really not. You can be an absolute disaster as a manager and still find work as a bench coach or base coach or roving minor league coach or something if you "play the game by the rules".

You seem to be describing the career of my old high school civics teacher, Toim Treblehorn. He had two managerial gigs. The first in Milwaukee lasted two years and was moderately successful. Then he got a job with an epically bad Cubs team, did not last the season, and never managed again. He ended up with several years as bench coach for the Orionles, managing to stay on with them in that capacity for more than a decade. I wonder if he decided managing was too stressful and demanding, and ened up being happier in the role of a base/bench coach.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by Michael Hopcroft

Still, the league is very different now from what it was in 2011. My fear for the Sox is that he is already in the process of alienating some of his best young players, and that rarely ends well.

How is the league different? Ricky benched TA, abreu, yoan, engel & forgot the other player for not hustling. Yerm ignored a dont swing order from a coach and a manager. So players run the asylum now and coaches are not allowed to enforce rules now? Ozzie threw players under the bus. Maddon has as well.Theres no indication, that i have seen that Tony's style is that different than most managers since 2012. The only thing that is a bit different that Tony used often was the Lefty specialist, which doesn't exist anymore. This team had a losing attitude til last season and very few thought Ricky was going to keep his job when this team became great.

[Brad K]

I put five scoops of coffee in the basket. I don't know why. Whatever process I went through to decide this works is lost. I'm left with a successful result which is what matters.

I don't remember why I decided it but a long time ago I decided Tony LaRussa was a jerk. I'm sticking with it.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by The Game

Who else, other than Big Mac, in STL used steroids?

I am going to address this.

McGwire has had a bad rap on steroids for years.

He kept a big jar of creatine in his locker, clearly visible, and used it frequently. This is, and was then, a completely legal substance.

YES, it helps build muscle mass, but it was LEGAL.

[Boomcoach]

Originally Posted by The Game

Who else, other than Big Mac, in STL used steroids?

Don't remember the name, was a rookie pitcher who fell apart in the Playoffs or WS, couldn't pitch any more, converted to OF, using PEDs to help him along.

I admit I dislike LaRussa and probably cannot justify my comments. When he and Joe Torre made it to the HOF by, IMO, managing to carefully avoid noticing what their players were doing, while the players themselves were being blacklisted, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Zorian77]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

I am going to address this.

McGwire has had a bad rap on steroids for years.

He kept a big jar of creatine in his locker, clearly visible, and used it frequently. This is, and was then, a completely legal substance.

YES, it helps build muscle mass, but it was LEGAL.

Except the part where he admitted he was using steroids a decade ago. And he has continued to make statements about his steroid usage in the decade since. But what does Mark McGwire have to do with Major League Baseball?

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

Being a drill sergeant for a young team CAN be effective, short term. Billy Martin had some success, as did Whitey Herzog.

Having high standards, and holding players accountable is a good thing, provided that you can keep their respect while you do it.

Problem is that it wears thin..and players eventually revolt and lay down. The White Sox felt that they needed an "old school" approach, and to this point, you can't argue with success.

I watched LaRussa for years (I live near St. Louis), and he SUCKS as a day to day, tactical manager. Having success is more than being a good game day manager.

Billy Martin's success was always short lived and probably the biggest impact he had on the game in a long-term sense is that he took a very, very promising Oakland Athletics rotation in I think 1980 and completely ruined it by keeping them in games for an absolutely insane amount of time. I just looked it up and in 1980 the league average team completed 33 of 162 games - A's pitchers completed 94 of them. Out of that starting rotation, which featured 3 players with sub-3 ERAs, one guy led the league in ERA the next season (the strike-shortened '81 year) but that guy's - Steve McCatty's - 14 wins was the high-water mark of any of those players for the rest of their time in baseball. I'm a Mariners fan so am not necessarily the biggest A's fan in general, but what he did to that team is absolutely criminal, and in the end all he wrought out of it was an 83-79 season and a distant 2nd place finish.

Probably a better example of a guy who could get players to hustle hard, if only briefly, was Dick Williams. Williams may have done stuff to his pitchers, too, although nothing comes to mind, but at least his shenanigans led his teams to the postseason. Martin did inherit a 2nd place (in 1974) team and got them past the Orioles in '76 and '77 so they could lose to the Reds one year and win the WS the next, but even including that his postseason record was just 15-19 and, well, Martin did get fired a ton. Williams, who seems to have been entirely forgotten now, also got fired a lot but won 2 World Series titles and 4 pennants...

[Déjà Bru]

We may not like Tony La Russa but he just moved into second place on the all-time managerial wins list with a win today: