The Chris Moeller Archives

Mac's back and Tony's got him

Tony LaRussa agreed to return for another year as Cardinals manager today, and I register myself as "generally pleased." I think Tony's main contribution to the team over the years has been molding and strengthening the psychological makeup of the club. The players mirror his intensity. He has now led the team for 14 years, longer than any other man in Cards history, longer than the 9 1/2 years he spent in Oakland, longer than the part of eight he spent with the White Sox, and long enough between all three teams to tally more wins than anybody in big league history who isn't name Connie Mack or John McGraw.

But I've never been convinced that the manager makes that much difference in the outcome of a particular game or season. With the exception of the rare individual who revolutionizes how the game is played, like a McGraw or a Whitey Herzog, I often wonder if we all aren't wasting our energy in dissecting the various lineup preparations, bench shiftings, and bullpen maneuverings. During one celebrated and corroborating moment in history, Yankees great Casey Stengel called to the bullpen and asked his coach to get "Williams" loosened up. The coach reminded Casey that there were two Williamses stationed in the pen, a lefthander and a righthander, and asked which one the manager wanted? "Surprise me," Casey said.

Tony always seems like he's working for his money, anyway, and I guess that's good enough for me. He utilized 136 different batting lineups during the course of the 162 game season in 2009. More rookies were introduced to Cardinals fans than in any year in recent memory. He ably navigated disputes between his pitching coach and the team front office, his pitching coach and the media; and all the while, worked to maintain multiple feuds of his own with various opposing managers and players, even resolving a pair of them with former players, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds, on separate occasions late in the season. And he never smiled once the whole time, so clearly he's not dicking around.

What I am most excited about, though, is the manager's announcement of the new Cardinals hitting coach-- you know him as the savior of baseball eleven years ago, Mark McGwire. Tony LaRussa has never impressed me as much as a man as he did today when he stood up at a press conference in St. Louis in support of the heavily-hounded McGwire, who's been burned at the proverbial stake by the nation's snide sports media more times than any man in recent memory save for Michael Vick. It wasn't just what LaRussa did, either, giving Mac a job, it was how he explained his action. He didn't repeat the smears or innuendo about the legitimacy of McGwire's career hitting numbers. The veteran manager acknowledged that his decision was personal-- that he was bringing in McGwire because the skipper's retirement draws ever nearer, and he wants to spend at least one year on the bench with one of his all-time favorite players while he still has the chance. He said he hopes McGwire can restore his public image, "I think that's a byproduct-- he's back in uniform, and people can see his greatness."

I'm also impressed with LaRussa's thought process. Obviously it's important that McGwire do well in the position of hitting coach. But the man who has bopped the 8th-most home runs in Major League history has been running an informal offseason hitting clinic for several years already, and additionally, one of his frequent work-out partners/students is Matt Holliday, the impact slugger of 2009 the Birds are trying to coax into signing a long-term term. What can it hurt to have another voice in there pitching St. Louis and the Cardinals to Holliday and his agent?

McGwire's return to the game is going to be extraordinary, I believe. Frustratingly, no other sport has made such a concerted effort to throw so many of its great players under the bus. Since even the waning days of the Civil War, the lords of the game have been shamelessly appealing to our sense of nostalgia (when the Northern cities were filling in, it was the great "pastural game") and patriotism, holding their product up as the great institution of purity and simplicity that it's never been. During their cyclical purgings of the undesirables and the anointed villains of fair play, we forget that we are losing the great players like "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, Pete Rose, and McGwire not only as stars, heroes, and Hall-of-Famers, but as teachers. Many of these men still are with us and have much to offer the game and its fans, and I'm tickled red that LaRussa's heart and mind were in harmony when he hatched this initiative to lure Big Mac back to baseball and the Cardinals. Sometimes the right thing to do also leads to great success.

posted by CM @ 8:29 PM