RetroSimba

(Updated Oct. 22, 2022)

On Aug. 25, 2005, Tony La Russa got his 2,195th win as a big-league manager when the Cardinals beat the Pirates, 6-3, at Pittsburgh. The victory moved him into third place for career wins as a manager, ahead of Sparky Anderson (2,194) and behind Connie Mack (3,731) and John McGraw (2,763).

Six years later, when La Russa left the Cardinals after leading them to the 2011 World Series championship, he remained third in career wins with 2,728, just 35 shy of tying McGraw.

On Oct. 29, 2020, La Russa was named manager of the White Sox, giving him a chance to pass McGraw. After the 2022 season, La Russa retired, ranking second in career wins with 2,902.

Mack and McGraw compiled all of their wins between 1894 and 1950.

Mack managed the Pirates from 1894-96 and the Athletics from 1901-50.

McGraw managed the Orioles in 1899 and from 1901-02 and the Giants from 1902-32.

La Russa managed the White Sox from 1979-86 and from 2021-22, the Athletics from 1986-95 and the Cardinals from 1996-2011.

Sparky helps Tony

Anderson, while managing the Tigers, offered advice to La Russa when he was with the White Sox.

“Nobody was as ready to help or impart knowledge as Sparky,” La Russa told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

In the book “Tony La Russa: Man on a Mission,” La Russa said Anderson, who managed in the Cardinals minor-league system in the 1960s, taught him a major responsibility of a manager “is to try to figure out what your guys do well and where they struggle _ and try to play one away from the other.”

“For example,” said La Russa, “if a guy can’t bunt, don’t put him in a position to bunt. If someone is a bad runner, don’t give him a green light to run. If a guy has trouble going back on the ball but can come in, play him deeper. If a guy can go better to his right, shade him to the left. All of that crystallized the idea to play to strengths and away from weaknesses.”

Cardinals celebrate

On the night La Russa passed Anderson in career wins, Cardinals outfielder Jim Edmonds told the Post-Dispatch, “To have the most wins in the modern era is pretty special.” Boxscore

The Cardinals made sure the achievement was treated as special.

After the game, Edmonds spoke to his teammates in a closed-door meeting to make certain everyone understood the significance of the win.

Reliever Jason Isringhausen presented La Russa with the ball from the final out.

The players doused La Russa with beer. First baseman Albert Pujols playfully dumped a tub of ice water on him.

Isringhausen said the beer shower was planned; the ice water dump was spontaneous _ and momentarily worrisome. “We were afraid his heart was going to stop,” Isringhausen told reporter Rick Hummel.

The club brought out a case of Dom Perignon champagne and made a toast to their field leader.

Jim Leyland, a coach for La Russa with the White Sox from 1982-85 and a scout for the 2005 Cardinals, presented La Russa with a personal check for $2,194 _ a dollar for each win that tied La Russa with Anderson _ to be donated to the manager’s Animal Rescue Foundation.

Asked what career he would have pursued if he had flopped as a baseball manager, La Russa said, “I’d be an attorney. That would have been bad. I don’t think I would have been a very good one.”

La Russa thanked his wife, Elaine, and daughters Bianca and Devon.

“Without the support of Elaine and the two girls, I would have been gone a long time ago,” La Russa said.

Third will suffice

Anderson had said La Russa could pass McGraw on the wins list. “I don’t think so,” La Russa told Hummel.

Pujols predicted La Russa would aim higher. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to shoot for No. 1,” Pujols said. “Knowing him, it’s going to be real tough for him to walk out of this game.”

During the 2011 season, though, La Russa privately determined he was ready to stop managing. He wasn’t getting enough enjoyment from the job, even though he still loved the game.

In the book “One Last Strike,” La Russa said he spoke with his wife Elaine in September 2011 about his plan to leave the Cardinals that year.

“She said it would mean a lot to her and the girls if I passed John McGraw for second on the list for most managerial wins in a career,” La Russa said. “I could understand their thinking, but I couldn’t give in to it because that was something personal and not professional. Doing it for them, knowing that I shouldn’t be there, wasn’t something I could do. I hated to disappoint them.”