I go to school up here in St. Louis, and today Tony La Russa was on campus giving a talk. He was an interesting guy, and had a lot to say about baseball and life in general. He did say some things concerning the Astros, too...
- When someone asked about whether he preferred playing in pitcher's parks vs. hitters parks, he unequivocally said pitchers. He's received assurances the new park they're building downtown will not play any smaller than Busch. He thinks it's hard to win consistently in a park that challenges a pitching staff too much, and mentioned Houston as a team that had done a "decent job with that short left field porch" (then everyone laughed.)
- When asked about who he thought would win the Wild Card and who the Cards matched up best with, he basically said it would be between the Marlins, Phillies, and Astros (gee, thanks Tony). He didn't come right out and say it (what he actually said was "all 3 of them would be a handful"), but he hinted he wanted Houston to win. He mentioned if Houston won they played the NL West winner in the first round, and in briefly reviewing the season series against those 3 mentioned how the Cards have beaten "the daylights out of Houston" this year. (Of course, I already knew both points intellectually, but it was still interesting to hear him say it.)
- When someone asked him a question about the Yankees underachieving, I figured "what the heck?" and got in line to ask him about Bagwell, Biggio, and the Hall of Fame. When I got up to the microphone, Tony said "whoa...Astros?". I had completely forgotten I was wearing my Astros shirt that day! Everyone laughed, so I asked him "well, you can tell by my shirt I'm an Astros fan, so do you believe Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio deserve to be in the Hall of Fame?" He said yes, unequivocally, that he has a great deal of respect for them personally, and that he thinks character can be a tie-breaking point in Hall of Fame voting.
He was very interesting to listen to and it was a very entertaining way to spend an hour. The only negative point was when asked about his rnew book, he basically said the only reason he'd written it was for the money. I know all authors would list money as the reason they're writing (I remember Dave Barry used to say on book tours "Buy my book! Or send me some money in a box!") and at least he was honest....but it still gave off a bad vibe.
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EDIT: I forgot another Astros related event: One of his themes he kept coming back to was the small-ball vs. the "wait for home run" mentality. He said you play according to the team you have, but he prefered a mixture of both. Having said that, he then began to immediately espouse the virtues of small-ball, and would continue to rave about it for the entire hour.
So when I got up to ask him my question, he said "By the way, did you see how the Astros won last night?" (Fortunately, on my way to class that morning, I had grabbed a newspaper and read the AP summary: I'm glad I did now; it would have been pretty embarrassing to have to say I didn't in front of all those people!) He then informed the audience that Eric Bruntlett had pinch run and stolen 2nd and 3rd, and scored on Jason Lane's RBI single off of their old closer, Billy Wagner. Then he again stated, "See? Small ball. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing."
In all honesty, I suspect a large part of his sudden affinity for manufacturing runs comes from the guys who have been filling in for Walker/Rolen/Sanders. Just MHO.
- When someone asked about whether he preferred playing in pitcher's parks vs. hitters parks, he unequivocally said pitchers. He's received assurances the new park they're building downtown will not play any smaller than Busch. He thinks it's hard to win consistently in a park that challenges a pitching staff too much, and mentioned Houston as a team that had done a "decent job with that short left field porch" (then everyone laughed.)
- When asked about who he thought would win the Wild Card and who the Cards matched up best with, he basically said it would be between the Marlins, Phillies, and Astros (gee, thanks Tony). He didn't come right out and say it (what he actually said was "all 3 of them would be a handful"), but he hinted he wanted Houston to win. He mentioned if Houston won they played the NL West winner in the first round, and in briefly reviewing the season series against those 3 mentioned how the Cards have beaten "the daylights out of Houston" this year. (Of course, I already knew both points intellectually, but it was still interesting to hear him say it.)
- When someone asked him a question about the Yankees underachieving, I figured "what the heck?" and got in line to ask him about Bagwell, Biggio, and the Hall of Fame. When I got up to the microphone, Tony said "whoa...Astros?". I had completely forgotten I was wearing my Astros shirt that day! Everyone laughed, so I asked him "well, you can tell by my shirt I'm an Astros fan, so do you believe Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio deserve to be in the Hall of Fame?" He said yes, unequivocally, that he has a great deal of respect for them personally, and that he thinks character can be a tie-breaking point in Hall of Fame voting.
He was very interesting to listen to and it was a very entertaining way to spend an hour. The only negative point was when asked about his rnew book, he basically said the only reason he'd written it was for the money. I know all authors would list money as the reason they're writing (I remember Dave Barry used to say on book tours "Buy my book! Or send me some money in a box!") and at least he was honest....but it still gave off a bad vibe.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: I forgot another Astros related event: One of his themes he kept coming back to was the small-ball vs. the "wait for home run" mentality. He said you play according to the team you have, but he prefered a mixture of both. Having said that, he then began to immediately espouse the virtues of small-ball, and would continue to rave about it for the entire hour.
So when I got up to ask him my question, he said "By the way, did you see how the Astros won last night?" (Fortunately, on my way to class that morning, I had grabbed a newspaper and read the AP summary: I'm glad I did now; it would have been pretty embarrassing to have to say I didn't in front of all those people!) He then informed the audience that Eric Bruntlett had pinch run and stolen 2nd and 3rd, and scored on Jason Lane's RBI single off of their old closer, Billy Wagner. Then he again stated, "See? Small ball. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing."
In all honesty, I suspect a large part of his sudden affinity for manufacturing runs comes from the guys who have been filling in for Walker/Rolen/Sanders. Just MHO.
