The baseball world is buzzing over Tony La Russa’s phone hangup. I think it’s a phony story. You’ve probably heard it by now – Tony La Russa, the St. Louis skipper and baseball’s 3rd most successful manager ever with 2,691 wins Tony La Russa is #3, tried reaching his Cardinal bullpen in Monday night’s game but got the wrong number. Or maybe he delivered the wrong message. But something went terribly wrong when La Russa called the bullpen to get his ace reliever Jason Motte warmed up to face the Rangers hottest hitter, Mike Napoli, who has 9 of the team’s 19 RBI.
But instead, lefty Mark Rzepczynski stayed on the mound for St. Louis and promptly coughed up the game winning hit to Napoli, who crushed a 2-run double to right center field. La Russa blamed it on the crowd noise, saying his message to the bullpen got muddled in the mix, leaving Motte unprepared to enter the game.
I’m not buying it. Tony La Russa is way too smart for that. He had all the power in the world to march to the mound and wave his right hand to the bullpen. He could have appealed to the home plate umpire, stating the bullpen phone was broken and that he needed more time for his star reliever to warm up. The ump would have little choice but to swallow the phony story and let him off the hook. The argument alone would have given Motte plenty of time to warm up. After all, we’re talking about Tony Freakin’ La Russa, the master strategist of the game – and who would second guess him?
But there is another explanation for what happened.. Maybe it was no accident at all, but what if La Russa were covering for someone – not himself – but another member of the team? Check out this story in the Washington Post about what may have really occurred:
What do you think really happened in Arlington?
