Tony LaRussa
| Tony LaRussa
(Baseball Manager, Baseball Player, Animal Rescue Foundation founder) | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 4, 1944 Tampa, Florida |
| Spouse | (1) Luzette Sarcone (married 1965-1973, divorced) (2) Elaine Coker (married December 31, 1973-present) |
Tony LaRussa, born October 4, 1944, is an American professional baseball manager for the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball (MLB). He is the former manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and Oakland Athletics, as well as a former player. Tony La Russa is a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame, the third-winningest manager in baseball history, a three-time World Series champion and a four-time winner of the Manager of the Year Award. La Russa is one of nine managers in baseball history with three World Series titles. Starting in the 1973 offseason of baseball as a player, La Russa enrolled in law school with the plan of practicing law after his playing days. He graduated from Florida State University in 1978 and passed the Florida bar in 1979.
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Player and coaching early
La Russa made his major league debut with the Kansas City Athletics (A's) on May 10, 1963. He spent the entire 1963 season in the majors, as was required by his signing as a "bonus baby". La Russa had an off-season shoulder injury while playing softball with friends, limiting him to only 34 games in 1963, in which he hit for an average of .250.
La Russa spent most of his time in the minor leagues the following six seasons. He was called back up to MLB with the A's, which had since moved to Oakland, in 1968 and 1969. Later he spent the entire 1970 season with the Oakland Athletics. Late in 1971 the A's traded him to the Atlanta Braves. La Russa final major league baseball playing stop was with the Chicago Cubs, where he made one appearance as a pinch runner in a game, on April 6, 1973, scoring the walk-off winning run.
With Chicago (in the White Sox’s minor league system), La Russa was a player/coach for what he called “a great man named Loren Babe, and it was just like an awakening,” La Russa told The Riverfront Times in 1997. “He showed me things about managing – and I thought I was a player who paid attention over the years. I had no clue at all what was involved with managing.”
La Russa managed the Double-A Knoxville Sox in the Southern League for half a season in 1978, spending the other half of the year as a coach with the Chicago White Sox. Then in 1979, La Russa managed the Iowa Oaks of the Triple-A American Association before taking over the White Sox from Don Kessinger on Aug. 2, 1979.
At 35, La Russa was the youngest manager in major league baseball.
Chicago White Sox Manager
'(1979–1986)'
La Russa led the White Sox to a record of 27-27 for the rest of the 1979 season, then guided the MLB club to steady improvement over the next few seasons. Chicago finished with 87 wins in 1982 – the club’s second full season above .500 in 10 years.
La Russa was named American League Manager of the Year in 1983, when his White Sox won 99 games pushing the club as winners of the AL West, but fell to the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Championship Series.
The White Sox fired both La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan after the club got off to a 26–38 start in 1986. La Russa finished his White Sox career with a 522–510 regular season record and a 1–3 postseason record.
Oakland Athletics Manager
'(1986–1995)'
When Bill Veeck’s successors on the White Sox dismissed him on June 19. Less than a month later, La Russa took over the Oakland A’s as manager brining with him pitching coach Dave Duncan.
In Oakland, La Russa again turned around a franchise – leading the club to an 81-81 record in 1987, the team’s first non-losing season in seven years. Then in 1988, La Russa piloted a young A’s team to 104 wins and the AL West title. Oakland swept through Boston in the ALCS before losing the World Series against a determined Dodgers team.
La Russa was again named the AL Manager of the Year following the 1988 season.
In 1989, the A’s returned to the World Series. The A's swept the earthquake-delayed Bay Area 1989 World Series from the rival San Francisco Giants to capture the title. Oakland returned to the Fall Classic in 1990, winning 103 games and sweeping the Red Sox again before falling to the Reds.
La Russa managed the Oakland A's to three consecutive American League Pennants and World Series appearances from 1988 to 1990. La Russa managed these teams with future Hall of Famers Rickey Henderson and closing pitcher Dennis Eckersley. Plus the "Bash Brothers" duo of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire.
After missing the playoffs in 1991, Oakland won the AL West again in 1992 – but lost the ALCS against the Blue Jays. It would mark La Russa’s final postseason with the A’s.
In 1995, team owner Walter A. Haas, Jr. died and new owners Stephen Schott and Ken Hofmann ordered Sandy Alderson to slash the A's payroll. As a result, Alderson began focusing on sabermetric principles toward obtaining relatively undervalued players. He was a mentor to his eventual successor as general manager, Billy Beane. This rebuilding program pre-dated the infamous "Moneyball era" only by two years, that eventually culminated in La Russa’s leaving the team following the 1995 season.
La Russa's career also spanned baseball's "steroid era," during this time in Oakland and two of his most notable players, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, have since admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs.
La Russa earned two American League Manager of the Year awards with the A's, in 1988 and 1992, giving him three AL awards, the latter after again winning the Western Division.
After the 1995 season, in which the A's finished 67–77, the Haas family, with whom La Russa had a close personal relationship, sold the team after the death of patriarch Walter A. Haas, Jr.. In the off-season, La Russa left Oakland to take over for the fired Joe Torre as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, who finished last place for the first time in a long while. La Russa had a 798–673 regular season record and a 19–13 postseason record with Oakland.
St. Louis Cardinals Manager
'(1996-2011)'
In 1996, La Russa took over the Cardinals to begin the season. After winning convincingly in the wild card round over the San Diego Padres, La Russa led St. Louis to the NLCS that year amassing a commanding 3-1 lead in the series over the Atlanta Braves. In what would be an unfavorable all time record for the St. Louis Cardinals to own, the franchise blew their fourth 3-1 series lead all time before losing in seven games to the Atlanta Braves. That’s the most blown 3-1 leads in all of baseball history and the second most in all of professional sports behind the NHL's Washington Capitals. Still La Russa showed strong signs of being a winning manager in just his first season as skipper.
La Russa managed Mark McGwire for all but one of his 16 seasons, both in Oakland and St. Louis. After McGwire On July 31, having already amassed 34 home runs to this point in the 1997 season, McGwire was traded from the Oakland Athletics to the St. Louis Cardinals reuniting with La Russa.
La Russa also piloted the Cardinals to postseason appearance in 2000. The Cardinals also tied for the National League Central crown with the Houston Astros in 2001 with another postseason appearance. Bringing the Cardinals to a third straight postseason appearance in 2002. The Cardinals went 97-65 during the 2002 season and won the National League Central division by 13 games over the Houston Astros. In the playoffs, the Cardinals defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-0 in the NLDS but lost to the San Francisco Giants 4-1 in the NLCS.
Having won three Manager of the year awards in the American League, La Russa won his fourth Manager of the Year award in 2002, this time as a National League Manager of the Year Award. He became the first manager to win the award four times.
The Cardinals won 104 games and the NL Pennant in 2004 before losing to the Red Sox in the World Series in four games straight. The following year in 2005 La Russa led the Cardinals to a 100-62 regular season record winning the division series then onto the NLCS before loosing to the Astros 4-2 in the NLCS. Then in 2006, St. Louis rallied down the stretch to win the NL Central Division title with just 83 victories. La Russa, however, guided the Cardinals through the postseason with a flawless hand – beating the Detroit Tigers in the World Series to take La Russa’s second World Series title.
La Russa faced off against longtime friend Jim Leyland in this World Series. La Russa is now the second manager to win a World Series in both the American League and National League – a distinction shared with his mentor Sparky Anderson. When he came to St. Louis, La Russa wore number 10 on his jersey, which is now retired by the Cardinals. La Russa wore this number to symbolize the team's drive to their 10th championship and pay tribute to Anderson, who wore number 10 while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
The Cardinals returned to the postseason in 2009 by winning the NL Central, then captured a Wild Card berth in 2011. That year, La Russa led his team to another World Championship – with St. Louis needing 18 of the 19 games available in the three series to win each round.
Following the Cardinals’ improbable seven-game win over the Texas Rangers in the World Series, which featured two sequences where the Cardinals were down to their last strike, La Russa retired. His final record: 2,728-2,365 – good for a .538 winning percentage and the third-most wins all time behind Connie Mack and John McGraw.
La Russa was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2014.
Chicago White Sox Manager
'(2021-present)'
La Russa returned to the dugout after a nine-year absence from being a baseball manager on Oct. 29, 2020, for his second stint as White Sox's manager to begin the 2021 season. Tony La Russa will become the current game's oldest manager. As of April 2021, his 34-season career will have spanned 42 calendar years. Only Connie Mack, who managed the Pirates and A's for a total of 56 years from 1894 to 1950, will have been a manager across a longer span than La Russa.
All-Star Games as a Manager
The 2007 All-Star Game was held on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at AT&T Park in San Francisco, CA. The American League won the seventy-eighth midsummer classic by a score of 5 to 4. Going in to the game, the National League had not won the Midsummer Classic in the last eleven meetings.
The National League team was led by manager Tony LaRussa and coaches Bruce Bochy and Willie Randolph.[1]
Even though La Russa had retired, he managed the National League All Stars in the 2012 MLB All-Star Game for the final time in his managerial career.
Personal life
Since 1991, La Russa and second wife, Elaine, are the founders of Tony La Russa's Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF), headquartered in Walnut Creek, California. ARF saves dogs and cats who have run out of time at public shelters and brings abandoned and injured animals as well as running programs to bring dogs and cats to abused children, hospital patients, seniors and shut-ins. ARF is a privately funded 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization supported by donors in all 50 states and internationally.
La Russa is a vegetarian. The La Russa's have two daughters, Bianca and Devon, and reside in Alamo, California.
La Russa has two older daughters, Andrea and Averie, from his first marriage to Luzette Sarcone. La Russa and Sarcone divorced in 1973 and Sarcone received full custody of their daughters. La Russa married Elaine Coker shortly after his divorce to Sarcone became official.
La Russa has Italian and Spanish ancestry, and speaks fluent Spanish in addition to his primary language English. His father's parents were migrants from the Italian island of Sicily and his mother's family originated from Spain.
