Wow, just as I was working on a post about this month’s giveaways and special promotions, some big news was dropped. The St. Louis Cardinals already had a figurine giveaway scheduled for May 11th in honor of their recently retired manager Tony La Russa, which you can read more about in a future “Top Freebies” post. Now they’ve added a special pre-game ceremony to the night in which they will honor LaRussa and retire his number 10.
Love him or hate him, this is a nice move by the Cardinals. With La Russa’s history, tenure, and success in St. Louis, a number retirement was coming anyway, so why not do it early?
The Cardinals released a video not even a half an hour ago discussing the move, with some good quotes from the Cardinals ownership and La Russa himself. The former skipper says it is representative of everyone’s success in the Cardinals organization in the last 16 years, not just his. You can watch here.
His managerial stats are as follows:
Chicago White Sox, 8 years as manager. 522-510 record, .506 WPCT.
Oakland Athletics, 10 years as manager. 798-673 record, .542 WPCT. 3 pennants and 1 World Series victory.
St. Louis Cardinals, 16 years as manager. 1408-1182 record, .544 WPCT. 3 pennants and 2 Word Series victories.
Total: 33 years as manager. 2728-2365 record, .536 WPCT. 6 pennants and 3 World Series victories.
One of the first things that came to mind was Greg Maddux and his number retirement. Although Maddux had much of his success with the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs also honored him with a number retirement. Might a similar situation happen with La Russa and the Athletics? The A’s have retired five numbers on their own, none of them honoring a manager. I’m sure there were more successful managers in the A’s history, but it’s just a thought that came to mind.
Congratulations to La Russa and kudos to the Cardinals for retiring #10.
