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Something to take the edge off:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/pete_mcentegart/10/25/ten.spot/index.html
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/pete_mcentegart/10/25/ten.spot/index.html
St. Louis Cardinals
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In the spirit of equal time, the 10 Spot unveils its list of the top 10 characters in Cardinals history.protegeV said:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...spot/index.html
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damn all they have to do is win 4 in a row...
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(yupnope)
even if I wasn't pullin for the sox, I'd definitely be rootin hard against the cards. reason #1: tony larusa... in addition to having the karate kid's last name (I hate the freakin guy!) he's just a complete ass. makes waaaaay too many moves in a game. sometimes you just gotta let the players play. though it wasnt' his fault, sending larry walker last night was idiotic!! I'm sure there are a lot of cards fans that thing they can basically pull off what the sox did. without a legitmate ace, there's just no way in hell.
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This year, as his Cardinals won 105 games, the highest total of his career, La Russa passed Dodgers legend Walter Alston in career wins. Next year, he'll presumably pass Joe McCarthy and Bucky Harris before the all-star break. With just a .500 season in '05, LaRussa would also pass Sparky Anderson to move into third place on the all-time list for managerial wins. That's third place, behind Connie Mack and John McGraw. And La Russa is only 60 years old. This is one of the best managers who ever lived.
Washington Post online, October 25, 2004
Washington Post online, October 25, 2004
Perhaps you should have included the rest of the article.
One of the mysteries of the last quarter century in baseball is how Tony La Russa, the Cardinals' smart manager, can have 2,114 regular season wins, but only one World Series victory. And that championship was 15 seasons ago.
<TABLE style="PADDING-LEFT: 15px" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=textSmallGrey vAlign=top align=middle>advertisement
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>After Sunday night's 6-2 Red Sox victory in Game 2 of the World Series, the Cards are halfway to extending La Russa's streak of futility to 16 seasons. And the pattern and tone of this Series are already ominously similar to several previous La Russa postseason disappointments when his players sensed his worry and tension, then tightened up themselves.
La Russa can see baseball karma in the fall of a sparrow. And, in October, what he usually intuits, whether it exists, is bad. This odd, almost perverse tendency to intuit doom on the verge of victory transmits quickly to his teams. And, if something doesn't change fast, we may be watching another remarkably talented La Russa team make a quick and ugly October exit.
Yet in 10 trips to the postseason, his record is 4-5 in league championship series and a poor 1-2 mark in the World Series with the Oakland teams of 1988, '89 and '90, which were all heavy favorites.
Now, it's happening again. A brilliant Cardinals team has looked horrid and tense in losing the first two games of this 100th World Series. In a luck and fluke saturated Game 1, the Cards lost the slapstick affair, 11-9. On Sunday night, the Cards' starting pitcher was knocked out early for the second straight night, allowing a less-than-full-strength Curt Schilling enough cushion to last six victorious innings. Worst of all, the heart of the Cardinals' vaunted batting order hasn't hit a lick in the clutch.
La Russa is such a dominant personality and team molder that his clubs not only mirror his personality but, like a family with a strong parent, instantly sense his moods, opinions and -- especially -- his worries, tensions and premonitions.
And, in a short, tension-packed series, La Russa is often choked full of worries, tensions and forebodings. He can't help it. It's his nature. He senses turning points, key plays, crucial bad breaks or rotten luck and has a precise sense of how those events change the probabilities of victory. Many nuances -- especially negative ones that few players would notice -- are instantly obvious to La Russa. Since he can't help using these postseason stages as an audience for his theories and views, La Russa's words, and the tone underneath them, filters throughout the Series. Anybody who's been around him much can read him easily. And that certainly includes his players.
In this regard, La Russa resembles Earl Weaver, another high-strung, intelligent manager who was better suited to strategies that worked over a 162-game season, but tended to tense-up his own teams with his superstitions, worries and dugout grumblings.
In this World Series, it only took one game for La Russa to start talking like the same fellow who may have rattled his over-dog A's when they were upset in five games by the badly injured Dodgers in '88 and swept by the hugely overmatched Reds in '90.
In the first answer to the first question of his first mass interview, La Russa went out of his way to mention how much the Cards would miss valuable fifth starter Chris Carpenter as well as left-handed reliever Steve Kline. "These two guys have been so important to us," he said. "It's really a tough break, but, you know, we'll do without."
Few things are more important in a World Series than for a manager to dissolve as much of the event's enormous pressure as possible. Last year, 73-year-old Jack McKeon set the example for his Marlins by dancing with his wife at parties, cigar in jaw, until 3 a.m. after games. His message? Just having a ball beating these cocky Yankees. Anybody got a beer?
You would think that, after 86 years without a world title, Francona might be mentioning the importance to the Red Sox of winning this affair. He's never mentioned it. However, before Game 1, La Russa said, "It's our fourth chance [for these Cardinals] that we finally have a chance to play for the ring . . . and only three guys [on the Cardinals] have a ring . . . Man, [this] ain't another baseball game. We're playing for the big ring."
Perhaps the quintessential example of La Russa's tone-deafness to the proper choice of words and subjects on these stages came before Game 2 when he described "the toughest thing to swallow" from the bizarre 11-9 Game 1 loss. He could have mentioned the Cards' wild pitching or bad clutch hitting or even his own weird decision to pinch-run Game 4 starter Jason Marquis who almost disabled himself twice in one trip around the bases, stumbling several times just running 90 feet to second base then having a home plate collision with Boston's massive catcher Varitek. La Russa's lucky his bright idea didn't put Marquis in the hospital.
Instead, LaRussa said, "The groundskeeper came up and apologized for the bad hop on Womack [on a David Ortiz RBI infield single in the seventh inning]. I've never had that happen. We had a chance to get a double play or throw the guy out at the plate, but the ball was hit very hard. . . . A double play would have been a nice momentum thing for us."
The groundskeeper was classy enough to apologize. Instead of being gracious, LaRussa chose to blame the Boston infield for a bad hop on a ball that was hit about 500 mph. Only in October, and only when he seems to sense that subtle factors and forces are conspiring against his odds, does La Russa suddenly sound like a manager who wants his excuses and his scapegoats all lined up, just in case he doesn't win the World Series.
"Baseball is meant to be analyzed and discussed and second-guessed and first-guessed," said La Russa. "You have a whole year of statistics for these two teams, plus you have career [stats]. I'd analyze it almost to death [as a fan]. I think that's part of the enjoyment of this."
Dump the analysis, the strategy and the stats, Tony. Give somebody a hotfoot. Wear a fright wig on the team plane.
Oh, sorry, that's what the Red Sox do when they get behind. The Cardinals will probably just re-polish their shoes and shave twice. That may not be enough.
2004 The Washington Post Company
One of the mysteries of the last quarter century in baseball is how Tony La Russa, the Cardinals' smart manager, can have 2,114 regular season wins, but only one World Series victory. And that championship was 15 seasons ago.
<TABLE style="PADDING-LEFT: 15px" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=textSmallGrey vAlign=top align=middle>advertisement
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>After Sunday night's 6-2 Red Sox victory in Game 2 of the World Series, the Cards are halfway to extending La Russa's streak of futility to 16 seasons. And the pattern and tone of this Series are already ominously similar to several previous La Russa postseason disappointments when his players sensed his worry and tension, then tightened up themselves.
La Russa can see baseball karma in the fall of a sparrow. And, in October, what he usually intuits, whether it exists, is bad. This odd, almost perverse tendency to intuit doom on the verge of victory transmits quickly to his teams. And, if something doesn't change fast, we may be watching another remarkably talented La Russa team make a quick and ugly October exit.
Yet in 10 trips to the postseason, his record is 4-5 in league championship series and a poor 1-2 mark in the World Series with the Oakland teams of 1988, '89 and '90, which were all heavy favorites.
Now, it's happening again. A brilliant Cardinals team has looked horrid and tense in losing the first two games of this 100th World Series. In a luck and fluke saturated Game 1, the Cards lost the slapstick affair, 11-9. On Sunday night, the Cards' starting pitcher was knocked out early for the second straight night, allowing a less-than-full-strength Curt Schilling enough cushion to last six victorious innings. Worst of all, the heart of the Cardinals' vaunted batting order hasn't hit a lick in the clutch.
La Russa is such a dominant personality and team molder that his clubs not only mirror his personality but, like a family with a strong parent, instantly sense his moods, opinions and -- especially -- his worries, tensions and premonitions.
And, in a short, tension-packed series, La Russa is often choked full of worries, tensions and forebodings. He can't help it. It's his nature. He senses turning points, key plays, crucial bad breaks or rotten luck and has a precise sense of how those events change the probabilities of victory. Many nuances -- especially negative ones that few players would notice -- are instantly obvious to La Russa. Since he can't help using these postseason stages as an audience for his theories and views, La Russa's words, and the tone underneath them, filters throughout the Series. Anybody who's been around him much can read him easily. And that certainly includes his players.
In this regard, La Russa resembles Earl Weaver, another high-strung, intelligent manager who was better suited to strategies that worked over a 162-game season, but tended to tense-up his own teams with his superstitions, worries and dugout grumblings.
In this World Series, it only took one game for La Russa to start talking like the same fellow who may have rattled his over-dog A's when they were upset in five games by the badly injured Dodgers in '88 and swept by the hugely overmatched Reds in '90.
In the first answer to the first question of his first mass interview, La Russa went out of his way to mention how much the Cards would miss valuable fifth starter Chris Carpenter as well as left-handed reliever Steve Kline. "These two guys have been so important to us," he said. "It's really a tough break, but, you know, we'll do without."
Few things are more important in a World Series than for a manager to dissolve as much of the event's enormous pressure as possible. Last year, 73-year-old Jack McKeon set the example for his Marlins by dancing with his wife at parties, cigar in jaw, until 3 a.m. after games. His message? Just having a ball beating these cocky Yankees. Anybody got a beer?
You would think that, after 86 years without a world title, Francona might be mentioning the importance to the Red Sox of winning this affair. He's never mentioned it. However, before Game 1, La Russa said, "It's our fourth chance [for these Cardinals] that we finally have a chance to play for the ring . . . and only three guys [on the Cardinals] have a ring . . . Man, [this] ain't another baseball game. We're playing for the big ring."
Perhaps the quintessential example of La Russa's tone-deafness to the proper choice of words and subjects on these stages came before Game 2 when he described "the toughest thing to swallow" from the bizarre 11-9 Game 1 loss. He could have mentioned the Cards' wild pitching or bad clutch hitting or even his own weird decision to pinch-run Game 4 starter Jason Marquis who almost disabled himself twice in one trip around the bases, stumbling several times just running 90 feet to second base then having a home plate collision with Boston's massive catcher Varitek. La Russa's lucky his bright idea didn't put Marquis in the hospital.
Instead, LaRussa said, "The groundskeeper came up and apologized for the bad hop on Womack [on a David Ortiz RBI infield single in the seventh inning]. I've never had that happen. We had a chance to get a double play or throw the guy out at the plate, but the ball was hit very hard. . . . A double play would have been a nice momentum thing for us."
The groundskeeper was classy enough to apologize. Instead of being gracious, LaRussa chose to blame the Boston infield for a bad hop on a ball that was hit about 500 mph. Only in October, and only when he seems to sense that subtle factors and forces are conspiring against his odds, does La Russa suddenly sound like a manager who wants his excuses and his scapegoats all lined up, just in case he doesn't win the World Series.
"Baseball is meant to be analyzed and discussed and second-guessed and first-guessed," said La Russa. "You have a whole year of statistics for these two teams, plus you have career [stats]. I'd analyze it almost to death [as a fan]. I think that's part of the enjoyment of this."
Dump the analysis, the strategy and the stats, Tony. Give somebody a hotfoot. Wear a fright wig on the team plane.
Oh, sorry, that's what the Red Sox do when they get behind. The Cardinals will probably just re-polish their shoes and shave twice. That may not be enough.
2004 The Washington Post Company
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I read that too - It was just the most up-to-date listing of his current all-time-wins place I found.
(poke) How the Mets doin'?
(poke) How the Mets doin'?
Anyone can cut and paste a small sampling of a larger article to prove a point. Afterall, most articles usually provide opposing views. No one will ever say Tony La Russa's a bad regular season manager. (they can't! his record speaks for itself) Even though, his coaching decisions are often times questionable at best. Nevertheless, the guy consistently chokes in big game situations. THAT was the overall theme of the article you cut and pasted from.
As far as the Mets are concerned, what's that have to do with anything? lol Yeah, the Mets suck! They're probably the worst franchise in the whole league. Big freakin deal! When was this ever about the Mess... I mean, the Mets?
As far as the Mets are concerned, what's that have to do with anything? lol Yeah, the Mets suck! They're probably the worst franchise in the whole league. Big freakin deal! When was this ever about the Mess... I mean, the Mets?
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Like I said, I was just looking for a current reflection of his status on the list of lifetime wins...not trying to misguide anyone.
I thought I read that you were a Mets fan - must have been a different thread. I was just trying to have some fun and give a little s*** back.
(drinks)
I thought I read that you were a Mets fan - must have been a different thread. I was just trying to have some fun and give a little s*** back.
(drinks)
You weren't mistaken. Die-hard Mets fan here. That said, still no relevance! : ) It's all good... I take it you're a Cards fan so we should all go easy on ya. Do you think they can AT LEAST make it interesting??? After the ALCS, watching this is like watching a freakin documentary on the mating habits of chinchillas. Hmm... second thought, I bet that would be fun to watch! If I had my druthers, I'd like to see the Sox win it all IN Boston. (if its' gonna be done, it might as well be done RIGHT!) So with that said, for the next couple of games anyway, GO CARDS!!
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NoCHICO2003 said:
That was most likely the most boring World Series of all time...hell, as a Cards fan the most exciting part of game 4 was the Cards getting out of a Red Sox bases-loaded jam.
One reason I've always like the Cards (besides my childhood geographical location and basic genetics) is the excitement they bring to the field. In the past, it was the likes of Coleman and McGee burning up the base paths, the antics of Joaquin Andujar, awesume pitching of Bruce Sutter and, in more recent seasons the extraordinary hitting prowess of many of the players.
Oh well, good to see a perennial redheaded stepchild actually take it...just wish it was not so fast.
Dude... no offense or anything but I'd be embarrassed to be a Cars fan right now! (and I'm a Mets fan so that's sayin a lot! hahaha) I mean GEEZ!!! could a team possibly have LESS heart??? It's like they didn't even care... I realize baseball isn't an effort sport like the others are but STILL!! somebody should have woke the team up cuz they were absolutely PATHETIC!!! I don't want to hear about how great the Red Sox pitching was either because you would think EVENTUALLY these so called big bats the cards had might at least get a FEW hits. I mean, I wasn't execting them to win the series but to at least put up some sort've fight would have been nice!! As crazy as it sounds, I think my team could have put up a better fight!
I'm tellin you man... it's your manager!! That guy needs to loosen the F up and have some fun. always analyzing s***... probably gave his players WAAAAY too much information on the RedSox. Sometimes you just gotta let em play!
oh well.. hopefully next year's team will actually have a pulse in the WS!!
I'm so sickened by their putrid performance that... I'm gonna start a petition to have the Cards disbanded. Wish me luck!
(I'm just messin with you man)
I'm tellin you man... it's your manager!! That guy needs to loosen the F up and have some fun. always analyzing s***... probably gave his players WAAAAY too much information on the RedSox. Sometimes you just gotta let em play!
oh well.. hopefully next year's team will actually have a pulse in the WS!!
I'm so sickened by their putrid performance that... I'm gonna start a petition to have the Cards disbanded. Wish me luck!
(I'm just messin with you man)
smurfedpro5
Member
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- Protege5
go stros
smurfedpro5
Member
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- Protege5
haha lidge i dont think so beltran is just a looser and to mutch money for nothing i (rlaugh) during the game somebody had a sign and it sead how is the view from the couch carlosCHICO2003 said:
