Here’s what we know happened. In the eighth inning, with the score tied, Tony La Russa picked up the phone and asked for Marc Rzepczynski to begin warming up. But here’s where it gets tricky. That’s all bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist heard. But La Russa would say afterward that what he actually SAID was that to get Rzepczynski AND Jason Motte working… he then noticed that only Rzepczynski was warming up. He then picked up the phone and called Lilliquist again to get Motte working. Fortunately, we have a recording of that conversation:
La Russa: “Hey, I told you to warm up Motte.”
Lilliquist: “You want me to buy you a yacht?”
La Russa: “Yes, that’s right, warm up Motte.”
Lilliquist: “Where am I going to come up with that kind of money?”
La Russa: “I don’t think it’s funny at all. Warm up Motte.”
Lilliquist: “You see a swam of dots?”
La Russa: “Yes.”
Lilliquist: “Guess what?”
La Russa: “Hey, man, there’s a game going on here. Just do it, all right? We’ve got a game to win.
Lilliquist (to Lance Lynn): “Hey, start warming up.”
La Russa was already having an astonishingly bad day. Before the game would end, his team would give up three outs on sacrifice bunts and two more on impossibly stupid stolen base attempts—it’s not often that a manager (or his players; it would be said that one of the busted hit-and-runs was called by [Albert] Pujols) can take personal responsibility for five of the 27 outs. He also ordered an intentional walk that backfired*, and later brought in the aforementioned Lance Lynn to come in only to intentionally walk another batter. This day was the managing equivalent of the day the Principal had in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
*As all intentional walks should.
But as absurd and illogical and freaky as all that was, nothing touched the phone call nightmare. And, unlike many, I believe the phone call nightmare justification because it’s simply the most plausible of all the incredibly stupid explanations for what happened.
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1. Fat Al Posted: October 25, 2011 at 10:40 PM (#3975365)In sense of: typically entertaining.
Better with Orosco.
The accountants bit was top-notch.
Hate to step on a good joke, but clearly the phones are protected from Paul O'Neill and his ilk. If you're going to let the children have bats, you must expect the furniture to get broken.
WTF?
I believe they use pigeons.
WTF?
Worst. Troll. Ever.
I think TLR is a great manager, but I did enjoy the highlighting of some his postseason career failures. He has had a lot of really good teams. I think if he didn't have the "OMG he has a law degree and is really smart and does all these crazy maneuvers and is a mad genius" aura about him, sportswriters might say he was a choke artist, at least the degree to which they say Bobby Cox should have won more titles.
I think LaRussa is a good manager, but the style of play that results from his machinations is unwatchable (akin to the ugly NY Knicks/Pat Riley era without the muggings.)
I don't know why, but his last couple of posts (that one and the one about baseball on Fox) have an edge his other posts don't generally have. Poz sure is a great story teller, but as with all great story tellers, most times I can figure out the plot of his posts or stories in advance. Not these times.
[Edited for clarity]
is as world class, all-time high level, no-matter-the-language-and-milieu as anything Pos has ever written.
I truly tip my hat to this phrase, which (at least) works as well in Spanish as it does in English (La Rusa es el tipo de persona que contrataría a un contador izquierdo para registrar créditos y a un contador derecho para contabilizar los débitos).
I just emailed the link to several friends. If you haven't read it by now, do so immediately.
I just about never RTFA either but y'all have persuaded me. I maintain LaRussa was never the manager most think he is, and is not the manager he was a decade ago. A good manager with terrific staying power who is well into his decline phase. He can still paint well in broad strokes (get good years out of iffy players, for instance). Guys in their late sixties often retain that ability while losing the ability to handle tactics and details well. There's no deep story here, I don't think, just an old man who has largely lost his moment to moment acuity and is not infrequently unable to handle complex, fast moving processes.
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