We tip our cap to Tony La Russa, who announced today that he’s retiring after 33 years as a big-league manager. With the White Sox, Athletics and the Cardinals, he had an uncanny knack for taking the talent he had and getting them far into the playoffs.
Good for him, going out on top after the Cardinals’ World Series victory.
MLB.com has a good video retrospective on La Russa at this link.
The Ball Caps Blog 
It’s great that Tony went out on top and on his own terms. Interesting that he was so few wins behind John McGraw when he retired. McGraw quit 40 games into the 1932 season with his Giants playing just .425 ball. It had been 9 years since he had led his team into the World Series, too. It’s different generations, to be sure, but baseball’s undercurrents don’t change that much. It’s still one ball, nine guys and twenty-seven outs. Comparing La Russa to John McGraw is interesting and makes Tony’s record of sustained accomplishments all the more remarkable.