Tony La Russa Just Made a Decision That Should Guarantee Him the Manager of the Year Award

Baseball feels like a decaying antique. The NFL and NBA dominate ESPN programming and occasionally you’ll see a centerfielder rob a home run before you get back to Stephen A. Smith shouting and sweating while debating Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James for the 1,000,000,000,000th time. Chicago White Sox manager, Tony La Russa, is the 77-year old face of this dying sport.

But Tony La Russa is actually making one of the smartest and most progressive decisions baseball has made in years. With injuries piling up in Chicago, La Russa has instructed his players not to hustle to first base if it appears to be a routine groundout.

Baseball culture is incredibly archaic and full of dogwhistle racism. You are expected to hustle to first base even if it is abundantly clear you are going to be thrown out long before you reach the bag. You are called ‘lazy’ if you don’t sprint to first base and lazy has historically been attached to brown baseball players. Even if a white player doesn’t run to first base, they are looked at as being as bad as the brown guys.

Unlike the NBA, most of the media coverage surrounding Major League Baseball is provided by middle-aged white guys. Turn on your local drive-time sports radio shows and it’s often two white guys shitting on any player that shows emotion on the field.

This sport is still holding on to what the other two major sports have lost: being white. And the weirdest part of the way the media discusses the sport and how baseball players police themselves by having pitchers throw at batters after they hit a home run and celebrate is how alienating it is to younger fans.

The Miami Marlins literally just had a team meeting because their 24-year old star second baseman, Jazz Chisholm, is too much of a ‘lightning rod’ on the field.

Jazz Chisholm is the coolest player in baseball and you can’t tell me otherwise pic.twitter.com/m1Iqed2C43

— James Schiano (@James_Schiano) June 19, 2022

I wonder what it is about Jazz that makes him stand out?? The Marlins are 12.5 games out of first place. They are 5 games below .500. There is absolutely no reason for them to be having team meetings and they certainly shouldn’t all be pointing the finger at one of the few players on the roster who actually belong in the major leagues.

It’s interesting that someone like Bryce Harper gets to play ‘passionately’ but anyone with brown skin is a lightning rod that’s distracting the team.

But shockingly, Tony La Russa has embraced his star player, Tim Anderson—who often gets talked down to by these aforementioned media members because he flips his bat after home runs. La Russa always has Anderson’s back and protects his guys. Even when Josh Donaldson awkwardly calls Tim Anderson ‘Jackie Robinson’ for no reason.

Round of applause to La Russa for telling his players not to worry about hustling to first. The risk of injury is not worth impressing old people with bullshit optics.

Tim Anderson, first baseman Jose Abreu, outfielder Luis Robert, designated hitter Andrew Vaughn and outfielder AJ Pollock are all injured right now. Stop sprinting to first base in order to impress the weird guy sitting alone in the bleachers with his own score card who’s listening to the live radio broadcast inside of his noticeably large headphones.

With Joe Maddon out in Anaheim and Joe Girardi out in Philadelphia, it’s clear there aren’t a deep crop of great managers in baseball right now. This season would be the second time Joe Girardi has been fired because the team wanted a ‘new voice’.

Being a great ball coach is far more dependent on how you handle players and personality than it is dependent on knowing x’s and o’s. It’s fascinating to see La Russa evolve during his time in Chicago.

Last season, La Russa threw Yermin Mercedes under the bus because he swung at a 3-0 pitch when the White Sox were winning a blowout. La Russa said it was poor sportsmanship which is something you’d expect a 76-year old alcoholic to say in regards to the actions of a Latino baseball player.

Tony La Russa was ‘upset’ that Yermin Mercedes hit a home run on a 3-0 count last night in a blowout win.

“He made a mistake. There will be a consequence he has to endure here within our family.”

— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) May 18, 2021

Now he’s telling his batters to stop running to first base. Tony La Russa is the first man over the age of 12 years old to ever change his mind. A king.