OAKLAND – Tony La Russa is sitting in a suite, filled with his former Oakland A’s players, front office executives and friends, watching his Chicago White Sox team play.
The guests in the Oakland Coliseum suite Sunday are more interested in socializing than watching the game, with even the Vikings-Packers TV game drawing more attention.
La Russa isn’t looking at the TV, and is barely talking, staring intently across the field. He is watching every move, jotting down notes as if he’s back in the dugout.
It’s vintage La Russa, the 77-year-old Hall of Fame manager who has won more games than any person with the exception of manager/owner Connie Mack.
“He’s still so intense, and takes these games so hard, maybe too hard,’’ says interim manager Miguel Cairo, who was hired two years ago by La Russa to be his bench coach. “He hates to lose. Just hates it.
“I’ve learned so much from watching him.
“He’s like my dad, honestly.’’
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It was two weeks ago when Cairo was summoned into La Russa’s office and was told that he’d be replacing La Russa until further notice. La Russa had just been informed by his doctor that something was terribly amiss with the heart readings transmitted from his pacemaker. He was ordered to go home, not watch the White Sox games, and keep from any stress.
La Russa followed the orders, went home, but, of course, still watched the White Sox.
He flew back to Phoenix the next day, underwent a procedure at the Mayo Clinic to repair the circuitry of his pacemaker, which was implemented before spring training. The procedure went smoothly. There was no need for an overnight hospital stay.
Anyone who was around La Russa for the two days in Oakland, celebrating Dave Stewart’s jersey retirement, will tell you he looked healthy, relaxed and energized.
He is back in Chicago, awaiting clearance from his doctors, and is expected to meet with White Sox officials to determine whether he’ll return to manage this season.
“It’s uncertain,’’ La Russa said, “a lot of it is going to depend on the experts. In the meantime, it will be fun to watch (the White Sox) stay in contention.”
The White Sox, whether it’s simply a coincidence or not, have taken off since Cairo took over the team. They have won nine of their last 12 games, passing the Minnesota Twins in the AL Central, and are three games behind the division-leading Cleveland Guardians.
The White Sox, badly underachieving all year, suddenly are virtually healthy and winning.
After five long, miserable months, the White Sox finally are playing the way they envisioned all along.
Cairo may be only an interim manager, but it was his fiery speech on his first day of the job, the players will tell you, that woke them up, perhaps just in time to save their season.
“He told us pretty much, ‘If you don’t want to be here, then get the (expletive) out,'” All-Star closer Liam Hendriks told USA TODAY Sports. “It was eye-opening to some guys who really have never been told no.
“There needs to be repercussions. There needs to be some kind of a risk and reward. That was one thing that reverberated with some guys.
“The message really hasn’t changed at all for us this year, but it was a different viewpoint, a different verbiage, a different way of delivering.’’
Said second baseman Josh Harrison: “Let’s put it this way, you can tell your kids something, and they don’t listen. Someone else tells them the same thing, and they get the message. It’s put up or shut up time.
“Miggy has done a great job bringing energy to the team.’’
The White Sox, 72-69, have 21 games remaining to see if their resurgence was just in time, or too late. The Sox play Cleveland and Minnesota 10 times the rest of the season to determine whether they can win back-to-back division titles for the first time in franchise history.
Their season looked like it was over just 2 ½ weeks ago, losing five consecutive games, including a disastrous three-game sweep to the Arizona Diamondbacks in Chicago.
“Sometimes, you have to hit rock bottom to get going,’’ said White Sox veteran starter Lance Lynn, who has been dominant the second half, 5-2 with a 2.05 ERA. “You get an opportunity to still make a run for it. If we get hot, we could piss off everybody right to the end.’’
If nothing else, the White Sox suddenly have life. Led by recent waiver pickup Elvis Andrus (.349, 4 doubles, 5 HRs, 16 RBI over the past 15 games), the White Sox are hitting .291 and averaging 6.1 runs a game in the Cairo regime. Their starting rotation, led by Cy Young candidate Dylan Cease (10-4, 1.17 ERA, .162 opponent’s batting average in his last 19 starts), is yielding a 2.57 ERA during the past 12 games.
“That team is playing up to its talents,’’ says Oakland A’s manager Mark Kotsay, who saw the White Sox produce 21 hits and 14 runs one night, and 20 hits and 10 runs two days later. “Those hitters are locked in.’’
If the White Sox wind up reaching the postseason, there will be plenty of speculation and theories, but the players will tell you that nothing was more powerful than Cairo’s speech. He firmly reminded them that mediocrity and complacency no longer would be tolerated.
“Sometimes, it’s good to just hear the truth,’’ Lynn said. “He pretty much told us that it’s time to do this, and if you’re not ready, you got to figure it out.
“The gist of it now is that we’re here, so look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘What am I doing to help the team win today. Give me everything you got.’’’
Cairo, 48, who spent 17 years in the big leagues, playing for nine different organizations, constantly reminds is team of their talent. Sure, they had a plethora of injuries to most of their biggest stars, and still are without All-Star shortstop Tim Anderson, but there will be no excuses if they squander this golden opportunity.
The Twins and Guardians had a chance to run and hide in this division but blew it. The Twins have fallen below .500 for the first time since April, and the Guardians’ .532 winning percentage (74-65) is easily the worst of any division leader.
“I’m just trying to make sure they know they’re good,’’ Cairo says. “They’re really, really good players. They have so much talent. I told them, ‘Don’t let this opportunity go by.’
“If you want to play, play. If you don’t want to play, sit down and let someone else play.’’
No one wants to sit these days. They’ve been arriving early to the ballpark. Staying late after games. Yelling at one another. Encouraging each other. Praying their resurgence isn’t too late.
“We certainly waited a long time for this,’’ outfielder Gavin Sheets says. “We obviously haven’t been excited the way we’ve played all year.
“We knew that if we were going to make the playoffs, we had to make a run now. And that’s what we’re doing. It’s our time.’’
Maybe the adversity and turmoil they’ve endured all season will make them stronger. Maybe it’ll be good that they experienced failure. A year ago, they rolled to the division title with a 93-69 record, 13 games ahead of Cleveland, and still lost in the first round of the playoffs to Houston.
“We battled through a lot of things this year,’’ Hendriks said, “and going through all of those obstacles, fighting and grinding, is only going to help us. It’s made us hungrier and more apt to find that next level.
“We didn’t have that fight earlier. We didn’t have that drive. We didn’t have that hunger. Now, that has all changed. Destiny is in our hands.’’
Lynn, a rookie on the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals’ team, vividly remembers the feeling of swimming in a sea of mediocrity most of that summer. They were 10 ½ games behind Atlanta for a wild-card berth on Aug. 24, only to go 23-9 the rest of the way, clinching a spot on the final day and completing the greatest comeback after 130 games in baseball history.
They went onto beat the powerful Philadelphia Phillies in five games in the NL Division Series; six games over Milwaukee, the NL Central division leaders, in the NLCS; and in seven games over the Texas Rangers to win the World Series.
The manager of that team?
La Russa, who retired after the season, was inducted into the Hall of Fame three years later, only to return for a final hurrah in 2021 with the White Sox.
Will there be an encore?
Will La Russa definitely return to the dugout this season?
Who will be managing the White Sox next year?
Stay tuned.
A season of White Sox drama may still have one final sensational chapter.
“After everything we’ve gone through,’’ Lynn says, “I can’t wait to find out.’’
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