The Chris Moeller Archives

To manage or not to manage

The Cardinals were expecting to know by the first part of this week whether Tony LaRussa would agree to return as manager in 2011, but the man just needs a little more time to make up his mind. It's the Cardinals that should be wavering. If Tony is not sure the fire is still in his belly then it probably isn't.

The baseball manager's contribution to his team (or in the case of "The Simpsons" last Sunday, her team-- enjoy this) is usually overstated, but not in instances like this one where the manager's personality, for good or bad, dominates the clubhouse. Tony was more prickly with the media this year than ever before, his feud with Colby Rasmus has forced the team to consider off-season trade offers for the talented young center fielder, and at least one observer suggested that the Cardinals players quit on their manager with about two weeks of games left on the schedule.

One has to wonder if the Cardinals would only be indulging LaRussa's personal pursuit of John McGraw on the all-time managerial win list (he's about two seasons away from passing McGraw for second place) if they brought him back, and heaven knows that LaRussa himself would never tolerate such intrusive human sentiment to invade one of his clubhouses otherwise.

P-D columnist Bill McClellan had some fun with LaRussa's indecisiveness (a perennial drama) in a column last week. McClellan is a noted Cubs fan and sometimes his newspaper presentations are designed to simply rankle the locals, but he nailed this one.

posted by CM @ 7:04 AM