The Flagrant Fan Blogs: Tony La Russa

<div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My first reaction upon hearing that <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/larusto01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/larusto01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Tony La Russa</a></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> and the Arizona Diamondbacks had hired </span><strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/halech01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/halech01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Chip Hale</a></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> to manage the team was, "Who?" And yeah, Walter William "Chip" Hale is not a household name. He played parts of seven seasons as a utility guy, Mostly for the Twins and finished up his minor league career with Memphis, the Cardinals' Triple-A affiliate. As such, La Russa would know him and the choice makes more sense.</span></span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The hiring of Hale does fly in the face of what has been going on in managerial hires of the past seasons. New managers have either been former players getting their first managerial starts without much experience (Ausmus, Mattingly and even <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsoki01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gibsoki01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Kirk Gibson</a></strong>) or former catchers as that field position seems to be favored.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Chip Hale is not a guy without experience and he is not a former catcher. He played just about every infield and outfield position, but was never a catcher. And you can certainly tell he paid his dues managing in the minors.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Two years after his playing career ended in 1998, Hale was hired by the Diamondbacks to manage their rookie league team. He moved up to Double-A in 2002 and to the Triple-A Tuscon Sidewinders in 2003. He spent three years there and his 2006 team won 91 games.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Since then, he has coached in the big leagues, a year with the Diamondbacks and then the Mets. When he lost out on the managerial job there to <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/collite99.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/collite99.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Terry Collins</a></strong>, he moved on to the Oakland A's where he has been the bench coach since.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is sort of refreshing to see a baseball lifer kind of guy get the chance. There is no telling if this is a good move for the Diamondbacks or not. We can see with the selection that Tony La Russa is going against the current grain here and that makes the hire interesting by itself. After a miserable 2014, any change in Phoenix has to be a good one. Since hearty didn't work, it might as well be Hale.</span></div>

Chip Hale to manage Arizona Diamondbacks

My first reaction upon hearing that Tony La Russa and the Arizona Diamondbacks had hired Chip Hale to manage the team was, "Who?...

+ Read more »

<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rick Reilly, the writer for ESPN.com, recently caused a lot of conversation with his piece, "<a href="http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10116177/rick-reilly-torre-la-russa-cox" target="_blank">Guilt by Association</a>." And the conversation is understandable because the piece was all about newly elected managers, <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coxbo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Bobby  Cox</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=torrejo01,torre-000joe&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Joe  Torre</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/larusto01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Tony  LaRussa</a></strong> getting a pass into the Hall of Fame because "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px;">the three managers being inducted oversaw at least 34 players who've been implicated as PED users and never noticed a thing wrong." Naturally, any conversation that includes PEDs leads to polarizing views. Half of Twitter is shouting, "Right on!" While others are saying it is the worst thing ever written.</span></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;">While my position on the PED players and era is firmly established in the, "I don't care" category and do not believe in banning any players or managers from the Hall of Fame, you might think that this piece will fall on the bashing Rick Reilly side of things. But I am not going to do that. This is America after all and everyone is entitled to their opinion. It was not long ago that everyone was piling on Rob Neyer for something he said, and yet, he was bashing Reilly today. </span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;">Instead of focusing on the writer and on his intent or moralistic leanings here, I would rather focus on the logic of what he is saying. And if I paraphrase the entire thing, then he is saying in a nutshell that if the players are not getting a pass on the PEDs they may or may not have used, then the managers who were in charge of those players should not get a pass either.</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;">In one aspect, he is right in that players did things they should not have done and the managers may or may not have known they are doing those things. So by either turning a blind eye or at worst, not paying attention, they are guilty by association.</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;">So that should then mean that no manager from the PED era should ever make it into the Hall of Fame because perhaps as high as 60 to 80% of all players in the game were probably using. If you take Reilly's logic to the max, shouldn't that be the case? Forget about it, </span><strong style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/leylaji99.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Jim  Leyland</a></strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"> or </span><strong style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/maddojo99.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Joe  Maddon</a></strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"> or </span><strong style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/sciosmi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Mike  Scioscia</a></strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"> or any others that might have a case in the future.</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;">If you are going to make this argument, then you have to take it all the way. The common belief is that all segments of the baseball society fell down the rabbit hole in the PED era. The scouts, the commissioner, the league presidents, the managers, the general managers, the trainers, the union, the publicists, the agents, and yes, the writers and broadcasters all had to know that something was not right in the game and yet it happened anyway. They were all complicit.</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;">Take Reilly's assertion to the maximum and Bill Madden of New York, Nick Peters of San Francisco, Rick Hummel of St. Louis, Tracy Ringolsby of Denver and Peter Gammons should not have gotten a free pass to the J.G. Taylor Spink Award. </span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;">Madden covered New York sports including many of the same players Joe  Torre is being accused about. Peters certainly witnessed the </span><strong style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;"><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bondsba01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Barry  Bonds</a></strong><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;"> superhero show. Hummel should be just as complicit as LaRussa. Ringolsby was writing when </span><strong style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;"><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=willima04,willima09,willima03,willia015mat,willia011mat&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Matt  Williams</a></strong><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;"> was playing and others in Denver. And nobody knew more people or had more connections in the game in his heyday than Peter Gammons. So take those on too, Mr. Reilly.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;">Speaking of Matt Williams: Now that he is a manager, what is going to happen if he wins ten World Series in his managing career? What a mess that will be, eh?</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;">And what of broadcasters who often traveled with these players and stayed in the same hotels. Should Jack Buck have gotten the Ford C. Frick Award? He called McGwire's homers after all. What about Eric Nadel who was voted in this year after his lifetime of broadcasting the Rangers. Did one broadcaster cover more PED users than Nadel? </span><strong style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;"><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/u/ueckebo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Bob  Uecker</a></strong><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;"> has covered </span><strong style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;"><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=braunry02,braunry01&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Ryan  Braun</a></strong><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;">'s career since the beginning. Should "Uke" be a Frick Award winner?</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;">No, this blame and punishment thing can go on and on and thus it is all pointless. You cannot erase history by executing all those who participated in the bad things that happened. You cannot have a Hall of Fame that does not include the best players of their era. You cannot have a Spink Award without the best writers and the Frick Award without the best broadcasters.</span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 16.988636016845703px;">Let it go. The numbers are staying. There are no asterisks. The players that created them, the managers who managed them and the writers and broadcasters that breathlessly reported them all need to be drawn in the times that they played, managed, wrote and broadcast. Blame does not get us anywhere. Heck, even the commissioner is going to be in the Hall of Fame someday. My point and response to Rick Reilly is not to blast him but to simply remind him that the entire game of baseball, including those who covered and broadcast it, are guilty by association.</span></div>

Taking Rick Reilly's point to the max

Rick Reilly, the writer for ESPN.com, recently caused a lot of conversation with his piece, " Guilt by Association ." And the conv...

+ Read more »