All doubts aside, La Russa stands test of time

The day the White Sox announced the hiring of Tony La Russa in 1979, the news was overshadowed by tragedy.

The baseball world was mourning the loss of New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson. Seemingly ticketed for Cooperstown, Munson had his life and brilliant career cut short at 32 with the crash of his private plane Aug. 2 while he practiced takeoffs and landings at Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio.

It was an off day for the Yankees and Munson, whose last game had been against the White Sox Aug. 1 at Comiskey Park. The Yankees won 9-1, dealing the Sox their seventh-straight loss. Munson wasn't catching that night - current White Sox coach Jerry Narron was behind the plate.

Playing first base, Munson walked and scored in the first on Reggie Jackson's homer. In the third, he struck out against lefty Ken Kravec, but strained his right knee and was replaced by Jim Spencer.

It was also the last game for Sox player-manager Don Kessinger. Sox owner Bill Veeck had picked the all-star shortstop, at the tail end of a stellar career, to replace Larry Doby after the 1978 campaign, but the team responded with a disappointing 46-60 record.

The day Munson died, the Sox were off and Kessinger met for lunch with Veeck.

As Kessinger said afterward, "I just wanted to sit down with him for a good heart-to-heart talk and share my feelings."

Kessinger suggested he resign, and Veeck, he said, "sort of agreed a change would be a good move."

"It was his decision," said Veeck, who asked the 37-year-old to remain as a player.

Kessinger declined, and the Sox called up Harry Chappas.

Veeck tabbed La Russa, manager of the team's top farm club in Iowa, to replace Kessinger. La Russa had been up with the Sox in 1978. In July, after managing Knoxville to a first-half Southern League title, he replaced Minnie Minoso as first-base coach.

The day after Kessinger resigned, La Russa was quoted saying, "We'll try to build a champion. That's my No. 1 goal. I know the people won't wait forever. There are a lot of clubs to pass, but we'll try to give the fans something they can take home with them - an interesting game."

I was one of those fans, just out of high school, in 1979 when La Russa took the helm. If you had told me then that more than 40 years later, when my own child was in high school, La Russa would be managing the White Sox, I certainly wouldn't have believed it.

Any more than I would have believed he would ever win three World Series, enter the Hall of Fame, and compile more managerial victories than anyone not named Connie Mack.

Although considered a rising star in the Sox organization, to me, an upper-deck lounge lizard, he was a fringe player I barely remembered from baseball cards.

La Russa's first test came Aug. 3 in Toronto.

In the 8-5 victory over the Blue Jays, players La Russa guided as White Sox farm hands boosted him on his maiden managerial voyage.

Steve Trout, who pitched for him in Knoxville in 1978 and for Iowa in 1979, earned credit for the win.

Kevin Bell, who played for La Russa in Iowa, blasted a three-run homer.

In the postgame interviews, the players, who knew him from their days on the farm, expressed their support.

"He's lenient and fair, but firm, too," Chappas said.

Trout said La Russa inspired the team with a little speech before the game.

During the pregame meeting, La Russa said, "Don't embarrass me and I won't embarrass you," "play hard all the time," and "come to me any time you want to talk."

La Russa's record that year was 27-27 and 70-90 in his first full year, 1980.

Fans, present company included, were impatient for a winner. We were critical of La Russa in a way we wouldn't have been with a more experienced manager, say a Billy Martin or an Earl Weaver.

When the Sox began 1983 16-24, we were sharpening the pitchforks, before a dramatic turnaround that saw the team run away with the AL West.

Strange now to think that the championship he talked about in 1979 might finally arrive in 2021.

Strange also to experience this displacement in time, seeing a man I associate with youthful memories and players who have long left the scene - Ron Kittle, Greg Luzinski, LaMarr Hoyt - occupying the same dugout as Jose Abreu and Tim Anderson.

It is fitting that La Russa wore the 1983 togs for his milestone victory Sunday. And it was a nice coincidence that La Russa's first base coach, Daryl Boston, played for him in the 1980s.

La Russa's success is a lesson to anyone beset by doubters and critics.

During his first Sox stint, they were legion - people like Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall and their loyalists.

Today, La Russa still gets second-guessed, notably this year when he left Matt Foster in too long in a loss to Seattle and later when he publicly shamed Yermin Mercedes.

But the critics need to heed the past.

Yes, he makes mistakes. He admits that.

But the big picture is what counts. And in the big picture, it is as true today as it ever was that it never pays to underestimate Tony La Russa.

He transcends. He endures.