Sunday Tony LaRussa was inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Here is the full speech, in case you missed it:
[mlbvideo id=”34857179″ width=”650″ height=”324″ /]Some takeaways:
+ LaRussa went full LaRussa. On a day when every other speech was scripted and meticulously planned, TLR decided to go off-the-cuff (with some notes). Compared to Frank Thomas’ speech, TLR’s sounds more like a press conference where their aren’t any reporters asking questions.
+ Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch wrote that LaRussa then proceeded to chastise himself after the speech for not mentioning 2 people: Roland Hemond, the Chicago White Sox GM who hired him as a 1st time manager, and Red Schoendienst.
+ “Because of the animals and other commitments at home, Bianca and Devon (his daughters) are not here. That does not make me happy.” It’s none of our business – truly – but that’s a weird situation and weird line to put in something that LaRussa knows is recorded for posterity.
+ Dave Stewart put on a happy face, but I can’t imagine that getting an extended shout-out that concludes with him as a punch-line was why he traveled all the way to Cooperstown.
+ One of the Cardinals Hall Of Famers TLR “forgets” before being reminded off stage? Ozzie Smith. Read into that what you will.
+ LaRussa can’t wait for Albert Pujols to get into the Hall Of Fame. The Angels would like to humbly remind the skip that there is a LONG road before that day comes. A long, expensive road.
+ He referred to the Diamondbacks as “we”. Ugh.
+ The Cardinals got about as much run as was to be expected. He seemed to divvy up the praise equally between the White Sox, A’s and Cards. If there was any doubt that St. Louis was a stop along the way for TLR (albeit a fruitful one), then this should put that to rest.
Photo: MLB.com
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