La Russa, Tony

Tony La Russa, byname of Anthony La Russa, Jr., (born October 4, 1944, Tampa, Florida, U.S.), American professional baseball manager who led his teams to three World Series titles (1989, 2006, and 2011) and was one of the winningest managers in major league history.

La Russa signed to play baseball with the Kansas City Athletics (or “A’s”) out of high school. He spent the majority of his 16-season playing career in the minor leagues, but he appeared sporadically in the majors with the A’s (both in Kansas City and, later, in Oakland, where the franchise moved), the Atlanta Braves, and the Chicago Cubs. He was named the manager of a minor-league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox in 1978, and his first big-league managerial job came the following year, when he took over the White Sox late in the 1979 season.

The cerebral La Russa—who earned a law degree shortly before assuming managerial duties in Chicago—proved to be a natural leader in the clubhouse. He developed a managerial style that consisted of frequent in-game situational substitutions that came in response to the great attention he paid to the nuances and flow of a particular game (which occasionally led to criticism that La Russa “overmanaged”). In 1983 he guided the White Sox to a 99-win season and the team’s first playoff appearance in 24 years. However, a slow start to the 1986 campaign and a strained working relationship with the team’s new general manager (former outfielder Ken Harrelson, who left the announcing booth to spend only one tumultuous season running the White Sox) led to La Russa’s being fired three months into the season. He was out of work for less than a month before he was hired to manage the A’s.

La Russa quickly turned the A’s into the most-dominant team in baseball. He led Oakland to the highest win total in the major leagues for three straight seasons (1988–90), each of which also ended with the Athletics’ winning the American League (AL) pennant. The team was upset in two of its World Series appearances during that period, but the A’s did defeat the San Francisco Giants to win a championship in 1989. La Russa and the A’s won another division title in 1992, but after the team posted three consecutive losing seasons (1993–95), he opted out of his contract and signed with the St. Louis Cardinals.

La Russa’s third managerial stint was even more successful than his first two. In his initial season in St. Louis, he guided the Cardinals to the first of seven division titles the team would win during his tenure. The Cardinals won a National League (NL) pennant in 2004, and in 2006 the team beat the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series. In 2011 La Russa led St. Louis on improbable comebacks to clinch a postseason berth (after trailing in the Wild Card standings by 8 ¹/₂ games with a month remaining in the regular season) and to win the World Series (after twice being one strike away from elimination). La Russa retired soon after earning his third championship ring. He had been named the AL’s Manager of the Year three times (1983, 1988, and 1992) and won the NL’s version of the award in 2002.

Three years after his retirement from managing, La Russa joined the Arizona Diamondbacks as the team’s chief baseball officer. He was demoted to an advisory role with the franchise following the 2016 season after the Diamondbacks ran off three consecutive losing campaigns during his tenure, and he left the team after the 2017 season. La Russa then joined the Boston Red Sox as an assistant to the team’s general manager. After the 2020 season he returned to the Chicago White Sox as general manager. In his first season back with the team, Chicago finished first in the Central Division, and La Russa won his 2,764th game, which moved him into second place for most career wins by a general manager. In the 2021 postseason the White Sox lost in the AL Division Series.

La Russa published a memoir, One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season (written with Rick Hummel), in 2012. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014.