La Russa era ends

Like him. Don’t like him. Think he’s a genius, always right. Think he’s a blockhead, always wrong.

Whatever you think of Tony La Russa, think this: An era ended for the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday morning, when – for good or ill – the Hall of Fame manager walked away after 16 seasons in St. Louis.

Somebody will manage this team when it attempts to defend its World Series title next spring. But it won’t be No. 10, and – I grant you, none of us has any idea who it might be – I’ll warrant the next Cardinals manager won’t be as interesting or compelling as the guy he replaces.

La Russa was a complicated man, unliked by some fans and some in the media for a standoffish personality, a prickly demeanor that never softened his West Coast persona in a town he affectionately liked to say was too Midwest, too nice.

Some who don’t know La Russa well would be surprised to find out how much of an old-school baseball man he is, how much he treasures Cardinals history and the men who made the franchise great.

And how much he never wanted to do anything but be part of the game that kept him in a manager’s uniform for 33 years.

Lawyer? Hah. That book store he talked of Monday? Nah. A baseball guy who will have to find something, something in the game to keep himself occupied? Oh, yeah.

For all his complicated personality, La Russa is nothing but a baseball man, unrefined by the nuances that a more rounded life would give you. He’d take that as a compliment.

We’ll all remember La Russa for the 1,408 wins in a Cardinals uniform, the two World Series championships, the nine playoff teams in 16 years in St. Louis.

But there are other memories.

I’ll remember the Sunday morning in La Russa’s office years ago, Bob Gibson holding court for reporters and one very captivated manager over in the corner of the room behind his desk. La Russa’s eyes were shining as he listened to an old baseball man tell old baseball stories.

I’ll remember La Russa sending longtime Cardinals minor-league instructor George Kissell with the lineup card to home plate in Shea Stadium during a playoff game years ago, knowing that might be the last game Kissell would see as a member of the organization. It was his own private tribute to a man who had spent six decades teaching players the Cardinals way of doing things.

I’ll remember La Russa wanting Dave Duncan at his side for the last game of this regular season, knowing it could be their last game together. As it turned out, the season’s end took exactly one more month, and it ended with La Russa and Duncan side-by-side one last time.

I’ll remember how La Russa privately treasured his friendship with Jack Buck, and how sorrowful he was – it came out as a flash of anger, in a reply to a question I asked that night – that Buck had lost his fight with Parkinson’s Disease that June day in 2002.

I’ll remember how La Russa responded three days later when Darryl Kile died in a Chicago hotel room, and how the manager held it together for himself and for his team in the days and weeks to come.

After something like that, how much does it matter if you can’t get the bullpen phone to work right?

Not much at all, it turns out. And when La Russa was as matter-of-fact about the phone problem last week as he was – and was absolutely light-hearted in a press conference the day before a Game 6 that could end his season – it dawned on me that he might really, really walk away this time.

And when, at Monday’s press conference, Elaine La Russa walked in, we knew Tony La Russa was walking out. After all, his wife had never been here for the annual press conferences announcing he was coming back.

And so, while the La Russas flew Monday to New York for an appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman,” we were left to contemplate the future, one marked by uncertainty as the Cardinals decide on the next name in this list, going back 32 years – Herzog, Torre, La Russa.

It will not be easy for general manager John Mozeliak to come up with that next name.