Three Nights in August

by Buzz Bissinger

  As a manager, La Russa couldn't help but luxuriate in Pujols's search-and-destroy approach to hitting. During his career, he has felt lucky and blessed to have been placed in situations that provided him with the tools necessary to win. On each of the three teams that he has managed, he has had supportive owners—Bill Veeck and Jerry Reinsdorf in Chicago, Walter Haas in Oakland, and Bill DeWitt in St. Louis—unafraid to spend when spending was needed. He has had strong front offices. The result has been the one ingredient a manager must have for success regardless of how clever and crafty he is: players.

  But still, there was nothing quite like Pujols. Players like that don't come along once in a lifetime; they never come along. Yet Pujols had another quality that La Russa treasured even more, maybe because he himself had come of age in the game during the 1960s. It was selflessness in this ultimate age of selfishness, a joy in others' accomplishments that exceeded whatever joy Pujols took in his own accomplishments. He liked baseball, all of baseball, didn't condescend to it. He was the first one to leap to the dugout's top step to celebrate someone else's hit. He took a walk when he needed to take a walk. He liked the challenge and surprise of bunting with men on. It made Pujols a new old-fashioned superstar, in the mold of other Cardinals greats such as Red Schoendienst and Stan Musial and Lou Brock. "The numbers and the money take care of themselves," said La Russa of him. "He's just out there playing to win. That's why I admire him."

  III

  WITH THE COUNT evened at 1 and 1, Wood comes in with a fastball. It's slightly up and inside. It hits Pujols, nicking his shirt. As he heads to first, he mutters something to Wood in Spanish, his first language. Wood, who doesn't speak Spanish, doesn't know what he said and doesn't particularly care. "Imagine that," he will remark later. "It stinks to get hit."

  From the corner of the dugout, La Russa glares at Wood, as that sickening feeling he has felt so many times already this season comes over him again, the agony of what to do worse than losing. He isn't convinced that Wood meant to hit Pujols. Trying to be dispassionate about it, he acknowledges that the ball wasn't too high and tight and was considerably below head level. But Wood's intent matters less than the fact of yet another hit batsman. It's a problem that all managers share, and it means that a message must be sent. He sifts through possible candidates, although the choice is clear. An eye for an eye. A Sosa for a Pujols. But this game isn't against Arizona in April, when La Russa could risk losing in return for winning the hearts and minds of his players. This is late August against the Cubs in a division firefight. The cost of a message is still potentially huge, because of what the home plate umpire may do. The best antidote would be the Cardinals scoring a run here. But Edmonds flies out to left on a fastball to strand runners at first and second, and another chapter is published:

  1 2 3 4 5 R H E

  CUBS 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0

  CARDINALS 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0

  Williams works Kenny Lofton with cutters and straight four-seam fastballs to begin the top of the sixth. The ball moves around the plate like jazz music: up, down, in, out, arrhythmic, no opportunity for Lofton to anticipate the next note. There is no youthful swagger here between Williams and Lofton, just two pros in their midthirties with a collective thirty-two years of professional experience trying to outfox, outthink, outmaneuver the other.

  With the count 1 and 1, Williams comes in with a cutter so high and inside that Matheny can barely get to it. But it's a little piece of catnip, the next pitch a fastball to the other side of the plate that Lofton slaps at and fouls. Williams goes the other way on his next pitch, back inside. Lofton slaps it again and fouls it off again because it's down to gut-level survival now, trying to outlast Williams and maybe get something reasonably hittable. With the count 2 and 2, Williams throws a slider down and in. It's a jam pitch in on Lofton's hands, right where he doesn't like the ball. It's the spot Williams wants to get to, the spot Duncan pinpointed for him during the pregame meeting, in on the hands because Lofton doesn't like it there.

  Lofton swings. It's one of those defensive just-trying-to-make-contact swings. He gets a little piece without any particular inspiration. The ball meanders in the air, a halfhearted ennui, the kind of existentialist hit that would keep Camus or Sartre in the money if they had played baseball, before it simply runs out of energy and plops into right field well ahead of Robinson. The ball is bored, so tired of itself, it doesn't even roll once it plops. Lofton stretches the weary little thing into a double when Robinson, again building a bigger, better doghouse for himself, fails to get to it quickly.

  It brings up Ramon Martinez. Williams's first pitch to him is a curve that sails above Matheny to the backstop. Lofton advances to third with no outs, and now La Russa faces the issue of what to do with the infield. His split-second deliberations begin with the basic question: How much will this run hurt us?

  Then he resumes the internal dialogue. He weighs the inning: top of the sixth. He weighs who is pitching: Wood. He weighs how he's pitching: lights out. He decides that this run could hurt quite a bit. So it does mean playing the infield in. It sounds easy enough once the strategy is decided on, just wave the boys in and wish them luck, but given all the variables, it isn't simple at all.

  Option A puts all the infielders in on the grass. It affords an infielder the best opportunity of stopping a runner on third from scoring if he can get to the ball, but his range is obviously limited because he has less time to get to any ball that's out of his immediate reach. Option B would be to place the infielders halfway in. It would make it slightly more difficult for some punky grounder to get through, and it would give the infielders more room to roam than the naked exposure of option A. It's effective against slow runners, but Lofton isn't slow, so option B is unlikely. Option C plays mind games a little bit by starting the infielders back and then having them charge as the pitch is thrown. The advantage of option C is that it can confuse the third-base coach, who is responsible for sending the runner and may not be prepared for a suddenly charging infield. Another advantage is that all the sudden movement can distract the hitter just enough so that he doesn't make good contact if he hits it. The disadvantage is that it doesn't allow the infielders any time to get set. There's also option D, which is a variation of option C. It's basically a half-charge; within option D are two sub-options: option D-1 in which only the second baseman charges, and option D-2, in which only the shortstop charges. If the hitter is right-handed, you charge only with the second baseman. Because of the natural line of sight of a right-handed hitter, a charging second baseman offers the maximum in terms of distraction, and he still has a chance to make a play since balls to the opposite field are not hit as sharply. Vice versa if it's a left-handed hitter; you send the shortstop.

  The complexities are dizzying, the effort to prevent something perhaps encouraging the very thing you want to prevent, the system of pulleys and levers vengeful and sadistic, damned if you do and, given the normal shelf life of a major-league manager—about four years—damned if you do anyway. They are small choices, tiny ripples in the game, but they can also save a win. After examining them, La Russa decides to go with the most comprehensive version, option A, in which all the infielders are playing in. With no outs, it's a strategy that has to succeed twice to keep Lofton from scoring, and the odds of such success aren't very good. But La Russa can find no alternatives. He doesn't want that run to score. There is major risk involved: If playing the infield in backfires, the Cubs are set up for a crooked number to put the game out of reach. But he simply doesn't want it. Not with Wood pitching the way he is tonight: ninety-four pitches after five innings. If his ceiling is around 120, he could easily last into the eighth, precisely what La Russa didn't want to happen.

  Williams comes in with a curve on the 1 and 0. Martinez hits it hard toward second base. Hart dives for it on the infield grass, getting to the ball quickly and getting it out of his glove fast enough to throw out the runner and hold Lofton at third. The infield-in strategy pays off, and now
it has to pay off again with Sosa up.

  Sosa approaches the plate in his usual style, more decked out than an overeager groom, tight blue batting gloves stretched tight, a guard to protect his right shin, plus the strangest-looking bat in history, even minus the cork that popped out earlier in the season. From the bottom of it hangs an oversized knob that, as one Chicago sportswriter put it, looks like an ever-expanding goiter. He also has something working in his mouth, gum or tobacco, that seems to grow exponentially the closer he gets to the batter's box—a complement to that goiterish knob. But all his trappings can't distract anyone from his 529 home runs to date. He'll pound any pitch that ventures into his wheelhouse.

  Williams works Sammy with four straight fastballs. But three of them go high: 3-1. It's a hitter's count, and Sammy makes his living off counts such as this, seizing on vulnerability. The expectation is fastball, something that can't afford to be too nasty, too in love with the edges. Walking Sammy would put runners on first and third with Alou up, and Alou wears out the Cardinals. As for plunking Sammy in retaliation for Wood's plunking Pujols, now's not a good time, for the same reason that it puts runners on the corners and moves the Cubs closer and closer to the possibility of a crooked number. So Williams has to give him something. But if he gives him too much of something...

  He comes with a curve. It's a smart pitch on 3 and 1, unexpected. But it hangs a little bit, not quite where Williams wanted to put it. And Sammy gets a swing on it, a good swing.

  He singles sharply into left. Pujols takes the ball and, still not taking any chances with his cranky elbow, shuttles it to Edmonds, like a screen pass, so he can make the throw in just in case Sammy has any ideas about going to second. Sammy stays put, but Lofton trots home: 1–0 Cubs.

  Williams engages Alou with heart-pounding symmetry. Curve. Foul. Curve. Foul. Curve. Foul. Curve. Foul. Until a fifth curve in a row, the best one Williams has thrown in the at-bat, gets him on a dribbler back to the box. Williams gets out of the inning two batters later. He nicely puts down a first-and-second jam, turns a possible crooked number into a footnote. But because this is baseball—so much decided by who does what first—the fact of the damage is still undeniable: The Cubs have struck first.

  10. Being There

  I

  WITH TWO OUTS in the bottom of the sixth and Mike Matheny at bat in the eighth spot with nobody on, La Russa opens the black box mounted on the wall beside him. He picks up the phone and tells Marty Mason to get Cal Eldred up in the bullpen.

  Just because he's warming up doesn't mean that Eldred will see any action tonight. If Matheny gets on base, La Russa may decide to pinch-hit for Williams here, which would mean Eldred's entering in the top of the seventh. It's the right place for Eldred, who has generally been used as a middle-inning reliever. But Williams handles a bat as well as any pitcher can. Besides, he's still pitching exquisitely, so it's likelier that La Russa would bring in Eldred sometime later in the seventh, if Williams falters then. If he makes it through the seventh, Eldred may never get in the game, with other relievers in the Cardinals bullpen more suited to the down-to-the-short-hair moment of the eighth and ninth.

  It's the fate of the modern-day reliever to live an unrequited life: get up, never mind, sit down, get up, never mind, sit down, just wait for my call, actually we just found someone we like better now. Eldred is inured to this, as is everyone in the Cardinals bullpen, because of La Russa's penchant for tossing relievers in or pulling then out at a moment's notice, guided by his matchups. The blunt truth is that Eldred shouldn't even be here tonight—he should be home in Iowa, in retirement, yet another of those pitchers who burned too brightly and then fell to earth. Which makes the sight of him reassuring, restorative. He is special to La Russa in the same way that Pujols is special to La Russa beyond the skills applied to the field. He represents something that La Russa takes comfort in and admires, a reminder of what still persists in this age of narcissism and personal stat building.

  When you have spent so much of your life in baseball that it becomes your life—when you have managed thousands of games and thousands of players—you see the timeline and transformation of the game from a unique point of privilege. You see the changing strike zone and the current mania over pitch count that never existed when Koufax and Gibson and Ryan were going at it during your own formative years. You see the dawn of sweet little cookie-cutter parks where a guy can hit a home run into the short porch in left simply by flicking his wrists. You see the rise of the sinker as the preferred pitch and the neglect of the forkball like an old widow. You see hitters routinely milking the count, whereas when you came up, hitters came to the plate to swing because that was the very point. But what you see most of all is the changing attitudes.

  La Russa saw the old attitude on the 1983 White Sox, whom he managed to a division championship, where veterans Jerry Koosman and Greg Luzinski embraced their roles as team leaders. They relished spending money on pizza and beer for team parties at which baseball talk would fill the androgynous, interchangeable hotel rooms in Seattle and Milwaukee and Boston and Cleveland until sunrise. Carlton Fisk joined those same White Sox as a free agent after all his fame with the Red Sox and jettisoned his pride in favor of work ethic. Under the eye of Charley Lau, Fisk reconstructed his swing and contributed with the freshness of a rookie yearning to prove something to the game instead of the game proving something to him. Like Fisk, Tom Seaver came to the White Sox after a career that had already guaranteed him a plaque in Cooperstown. He was past his sublimity with the Mets, that seven-year stretch from 1969 to 1976 when he won twenty or more four times. But he could still handle a game from the mound in a way that La Russa still talks about with the starry eyes of seeing magic. In 1984 against Toronto, Lloyd Moseby came up in the late innings, with the White Sox clinging to a one-run lead and runners on second and third with two outs. Still in the habit of inquiring over the inevitable, La Russa came out to the mound to ask Seaver how he felt. But Seaver refused to sugarcoat it:

  "I don't have much else left."

  And then he proceeded to tell La Russa precisely how he was going to pitch to Moseby: purposely run the count on him to 3-1 to lull him into a false sense of superiority, give him a hitter's count, then get him out with a changeup.

  "Don't worry about it," he told La Russa.

  La Russa trotted back to the dugout, trying not to worry about it. He watched as Seaver threw a fastball in and off the plate to run the count to 3–1. Then he watched as Seaver threw Moseby a changeup that was down and away but still fat enough to desire. Moseby swung, his timing upset by the fastball Seaver had just thrown. He popped the ball up behind third base to end the inning.

  La Russa and Seaver ultimately parted, La Russa to the A's and Seaver to the end of his career with the Red Sox. But La Russa's respect for Seaver never diminished, only became stronger when he learned that Seaver turned down an extra year he was entitled to by contract because he didn't have it anymore and didn't want to take something he no longer felt he deserved.

  The old attitude showed itself after the hideously painful loss in Game 4 of the 1992 American League Championship series to the Toronto Blue Jays, when A's pitcher Dave Stewart stood in the silent and crestfallen clubhouse and told his teammates to have their bags packed for a return to Toronto, because there was no way he was going to lose Game 5 to let the Blue Jays walk away with the ALCS. You just knew he'd keep his promise, because of that angry take-it-personal fire in his eyes, and he did, pitching a complete game in a 6–2 win. The old attitude could also show itself in defeat, as when Eckersley refused to flinch from the fury of reporters' questions in the clubhouse after he gave up The Home Run to Kirk Gibson in the 1988 World Series against the Dodgers on that fateful back-door slider that went through the front door instead.

  There are occasional splendid throwbacks, such as Pujols, and La Russa has had more than his fair share because of the situations in which he has managed. But he also believes that no aspect of the gam
e has changed more profoundly in the last twenty-five years than the values of the players—what turns them on and turns them off and whether some of them can be turned on at all.

  He spends more time than ever now schooling players on the value of competition. He explains to them in spring training the challenge and magnificence of getting a World Series ring, because "it won't happen accidentally. You gotta tell 'em to want it." He sees how quickly clubhouses empty out regardless of how sweet the win or how tough the loss, suburbanites hoping to catch the 5:05 home, all-night talk of baseball replaced by simply wanting to get to wherever they're going. He wishes there were more team parties, but when so many players are glancing impatiently at their Rolexes because it's almost ten o'clock, no party could generate much esprit de corps.

  In recent years, La Russa has noticed that many players' careers run on either of two settings. Most seasons, players do what they have to do and plug along because when you have talent, you can plug along. During the free-agency year, their intensity picks up, and they're like hungry rookies again, eager to prove themselves and to avoid injury. Certain players display increased selfishness, free-swinging on the first pitch because they're 0 for 2 and frantic to get a hit when they really should be working the pitcher for a walk. The only scoreboard they're watching is the one in their head, tracking their stats that may mean nothing during a game but could be worth millions at arbitration. In La Russa's playing days, and during his first years in the foxhole, a manager's tactical ability was the greatest determinant of his shelf life. The psychiatric component of the game—urging players along with pleas and prods and love and tough love—getting them to play hard all the time and focus on competition, was only an occasional duty. The biggest problem that players had in the 1960s and 1970s was, according to Duncan, insecurity: the knowledge that if they didn't perform, they would be up and out. It was a merciless environment for players. But now the problem is overconfidence, the job security they have earned over the years breeding, as he puts it, "a different monster." La Russa calculates that for today's players, winning is "third or fourth on their list behind making money and having security and all that other BS."