Lincicome: Be happy with La Russa because it could be a whole lot worse

The pervasive opinion seems to be that Tony La Russa is a doofus. Worse than that he is an unaware doofus. Out of touch. Arrogant. Prickly. Rigid, inflexible and pigheaded.

None of these descriptions are included on La Russa's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque - well, maybe arrogant, a Cooperstown redundancy - nor are they likely to be added however his late life rebirth turns out.

At his age, reliably reported to be 77, La Russa should be running a nation, or ruining one, instead of doing something as vital as managing a baseball team on the South Side of Chicago.

There is just no excuse for the agita La Russa is causing among fans, writers and bloggers by doing the same stuff he did when he was winning six pennants, three World Series and more games than Babe Ruth played in.

Be reassured that I am on the La Russa Watch, which is what passes these days for entertaining baseball around here. Not to say that the manager of the White Sox is going to be fired, or that he should be fired, but I take on the simple task of detailing his defects, all of which were already known but lately are deemed inexcusable.

Intentionally walking a Dodger with two strikes. That seems to be the big one. The fact that the next guy up hit a home run effectively wrecked any explanation La Russa could make, though La Russa made one anyhow.

Stunned. Yes, stunned that such a thing happened in public, before the eyes of paying customers who have never managed a baseball game but know that two strikes are only one strike from an out, never considering how many two-strike hits have come in the history of the game.

Well, La Russa is the living history of the game and if anyone knows, it is he.

However, one must consider the implications of so unfortunate a decision. Is it because La Russa had lost track of how many strikes it takes to make an out, or - relying on the old school logic La Russa himself is so fond of - is it that such a thing is just not done?

Well, of course it is. And worse. I can think of two local examples of much worse mismanagement, still indefensible. The sorriest White Sox manager in my time, Terry Bevington, once used up his entire bullpen in one inning. If La Russa ever does such a thing, I say haul him away without a shower.

A more notable example of costly managerial choice was made by one of my favorites, Dusty Baker, in charge of the Cubs during the now notorious Bartman game. Not that Baker had anything to do with a happy fan's botching an out, nor the subsequent error that would have turned a double play and made it all moot, but he was responsible for leaving in Mark Prior to melt down.

In fact, Baker's great legacy in his time with the Cubs was that he probably shortened the careers of both Kerry Wood and Prior by overworking them.

Now, all these years later, pitch counts are sacred and any starter making it past the sixth inning is an iron man. Two things make a good manager these days, a deep bullpen and Aaron Judge as a designated hitter.

The Sox and La Russa are the casualties of their own success, two seasons that seemed to be progressing upward, each rung of the postseason ladder ticked, playing in a division with only the slightest speed bumps to get in their way, to mix and match a twisted metaphor.

The assumption has been made that the game has passed La Russa by, what with the silly business of starting extra innings with a runner on second base and the like. What of those statistical anagrams that look like they belong on a tax form? Or is it that the modern ballplayer does not connect to someone who could easily be his grandfather?

Being a grandfather myself I can relate to that, having too often opened a conversation with a question or an observation only to have in return a shrug and "Whatever."

Maybe it's a Millennial thing. Most things are. Anyone is dismissed who remembers bottle openers, dial telephones or Tony Orlando and Dawn.

Sure. Whatever.