Team hires Hall of Famer La Russa, 76
CHICAGO — Tony La Russa didn’t envision returning to the dugout when he stood at the podium in Cooperstown six years ago and took his place alongside baseball’s greats.
That started to change the past few seasons. And he simply couldn’t resist the opportunity the Chicago White Sox gave him.
La Russa, the Hall of Famer who won a World Series with the Oakland Athletics and two more with the St. Louis Cardinals, is returning to manage the White Sox 34 years after they fired him.
The 76-year-old La Russa rejoins the franchise where his bigleague managing career began more than four decades ago. He takes over for Rick Renteria after what the White Sox insisted was a mutual agreement to split.
“How rare it is to get an opportunity to manage a team that’s this talented and this close to winning,” La Russa said. “Most of the time your chances are the opposite. The combination of looking forward to getting back down there and ... the White Sox making the call with a chance to win sooner rather than later, I’m excited that they made that choice and looking forward to what’s ahead.”
La Russa inherits a team loaded with young stars and productive veterans that reached the postseason for the first time since 2008, only to sputter down the stretch and get knocked out in the wild-card round. The White Sox have never made back-toback playoff appearances. But after ending a string of seven losing seasons, they are in po
sition to change that.
La Russa becomes the oldest manager in the major leagues by five years. Houston’s Dusty Baker is 71.
La Russa, who started his managing career with the White Sox during the 1979 season, is returning to the dugout for the first time since 2011, when he led St. Louis past Texas in the World Series. He also won championships with Oakland in 1989 and the Cardinals in 2006.
La Russa is 2,728-2,365 with six pennants over 33 seasons with Chicago, Oakland and St. Louis. He was enshrined in Cooperstown in 2014. Only Hall of Famers Connie Mack ( 3,731) and John Mcgraw (2,763) have more victories. He and Sparky Anderson are the only managers to win the World Series in the
American and National leagues.
Larussa got his first major league managing job at age 34 when the White Sox promoted him from Triple- A to replace the fired Don Kessinger. He took over that August and led them to a 522-510 record over parts of eight seasons.
The 1983 team won 99 games on the way to the AL West championship — Chicago’s first playoff appearance since the 1959 Go-go White Sox won the pennant. But he was fired in 1986 by then-general manager Ken Harrelson after the White Sox got off to a 26-38 start.
Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf has long regretted allowing that move and remains close with La Russa. Now, they’re reuniting.
“His hiring is not based on friendship or on what happened years
ago, but on the fact that we have the opportunity to have one of the greatest managers in the game’s history in our dugout at a time when we believe our team is poised for great accomplishments,” Reinsdorf said in a statement.
The move is a surprise considering how long it’s been since La Russa was in the dugout. General manager Rick Hahn had said the White Sox were looking for someone who has “experience with a championship organization in recent years.”
Former Houston manager AJ Hinch and ex-boston skipper Alex Cora fit that description. Both were suspended by Major League Baseball for the 2020 season for their roles in the Astros’ sign stealing scandal, and both lost their manager jobs. Their punishments ended this week.