Tony La Russa
FameRank: 5

"As player"

* Oakland Athletics/Kansas City / Oakland Athletics (, –)

* Atlanta Braves

* Chicago Cubs

"As manager"

* Chicago White Sox (–)

* Oakland Athletics (–)

* St. Louis Cardinals (–)

/highlights=

* 3× World Series champion (, , )

* 4× Major League Baseball Manager of the Year Award/Manager of the Year (1983, 1988, 1992, 2002)

* St. Louis Cardinals#Retired numbers/St. Louis Cardinals #10 retired

* St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum/St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame

/hofdate=Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 2014/2014

/hofvote=100.0% (Expansion Era Committee)

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"Anthony "Tony" La Russa, Jr." (; born October 4, 1944) is an American professional baseball player, manager (baseball)/manager, and executive. He is best known for his tenures as manager of the Chicago White Sox, Oakland Athletics, and St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). His MLB career has spanned from 1963 to the present. As a manager, La Russa guided his teams to three World Series titles, six league championships and twelve division titles in 33 seasons. His 2,728 wins as a manager Major League Baseball all-time managerial wins/ranks third all-time in major league history, behind Connie Mack and John McGraw.

More Tony La Russa on Wikipedia.

I don't care how well you throw if your guys are terrible at unloading the ball and holding guys on, ... so it's a joint effort. But it's like Mike [Matheny] was, and like Pudge Rodriguez. He's an intimidating weapon. Guys don't run very much against him. It's a heck of a weapon for your side.

202

I'll say exactly what I said last year: It's one; it's not zero. I think we'll take the consistent approach.

178

What's different about this club, when you have this many setbacks, it's usually part of why you don't win or you barely squeeze by in the last week of the season with a good but not great record. To have this kind of run and play this quality of baseball for this long is why this club deserves a very different kind of credit.

171

I think we understand we're officially in October baseball. But we discussed it last year and again this year. It just doesn't seem right to celebrate it when the magic number is one. You're watching the number go 10, 9, 8 ... and it gets to one so you celebrate? When it gets to zero, you celebrate. That's what we're going to do.

149

We understand we're officially in October baseball. It just doesn't seem right to celebrate when your magic number is one.

148

The best way to keep yourself competitive is not to change anything. Right now we're trying to grind out wins and win the division.

145

You're watching the number and go '10-9-8' and get to one and you're going to celebrate? Zero is when you celebrate. That's what we're doing to do.

133

The thing I learned when I was playing was that your best way of winning was to make it difficult for the other club to score in the last three innings of the game.

133