It hasn’t exactly been the best of times for Tony La Russa and David Ross, the two baseball managers in a baseball town.
Neither is a particularly good loser, yet losing has defined both of their 2022 seasons in the first three months.
La Russa’s Chicago White Sox were expected to be World Series contenders. It’s a team custom-built for a veteran manager to get it over the hump, which is why La Russa came out of retirement in 2020 to take the reins.
But the Sox began their West Coast trip Monday in Anaheim with a losing record amid plenty of discord over whether La Russa carries most of the blame.
On the flip side, not much was expected from Ross’ Cubs after a 91-loss season and only two significant free-agent signings in Marcus Stroman and Seiya Suzuki.
But the Cubs, being the Cubs, still have managed to play below those low expectations. They’ll take the fifth-worst record in the majors (28-45) into Tuesday’s opener of a three-game series with the bottom-feeding Cincinnati Reds.
The collective angst among Chicago baseball fans is at near-historic levels, perhaps not seen since the summer of 2002, when the Cubs lost 95 games under Don Baylor, Rene Lachemann and Bruce Kimm and the Sox finished .500 under Jerry Manuel.
No one is happy, except perhaps the beer cup stackers not watching the games at Wrigley Field and the gambling sites accepting wagers from the dwindling number of Sox fans who still believe they’ll make a run.
La Russa, 77, and Ross, 45, are quite different in age and personality. But they do share a few similarities, including a testiness on occasion after difficult losses. Both have been tested in 2022.
La Russa has been confrontational with reporters, and Ross once walked out on a reporter’s question, which he later apologized for. Neither has spewed volcanic ash despite the minor eruptions.
Unfortunately, the days of managers of losing teams venting at the main culprits — the players they manage — are seemingly part of a bygone era. As long as the effort is there, La Russa and Ross are OK, and as far as they’re concerned, the effort has been there all season.
“It doesn’t benefit any manager, coach, even player to rant publicly,” Ross said Sunday morning at Busch Stadium. “There are things that happen in house that you have to take care of and you have to have a little bit of teeth every once in a while.
“The key to that is understanding why you have those conversations, what those intentions are and the expectations for a manager, a coach, an organization that will never go away. When you keep those standards high and don’t waver, it’s really important.”
Ross said he shows “emotions,” but flipping the food spread in the postgame clubhouse to show how you feel no longer is a viable way to send a message, unlike the days of Billy Martin and his peers.
“When I got to A-ball, the spread was on a little bitty picnic table,” Ross recalled. “That thing’s easy to flip. Now it’s a buffet line. That would piss me off — I would probably be hungry in 30 minutes, right?
“I played for some of those guys and you understand where they’re coming from. But I think now the conversations — and being able to hold in those emotions and be direct with the wording — is going to get you farther than (showing) emotion.”
Legend has it that Martin once flipped the clubhouse spread after a tough loss to the White Sox at old Comiskey Park, oblivious to a New York Yankees player sitting at the table munching on a sandwich.
Those were the days when managers had much more control over players’ careers. That ended with the beginnings of free agency, the ubiquity of multiyear contracts going into eight and then nine figures and finally the intrusion of front offices into everyday decisions from lineups to bullpen usage.
Even Lou Piniella conceded when he arrived in Chicago to manage the Cubs in 2007 that it was now a “player’s game.” Piniella was one of the last of the old-school managers, confident enough in his job security to call Cubs outfielder Milton Bradley a “piece of (expletive).” But his biggest confrontation in town wasn’t with a player but with Steve Stone after the Sox broadcaster criticized him in 2010 for not playing prospect Tyler Colvin.
“I think that means that Lou doesn’t have a great grasp on what to do with young players,” Stone told Comcast SportsNet, now NBC Chicago Sports.
“What job has he had in baseball besides talking on television or radio?” Piniella fumed. “What has he done? Why isn’t he a farm director and bring some kids around? Why isn’t he a general manager? Why hasn’t he ever put the uniform on and (become) a pitching coach? Why hasn’t he been a field manager?
“There are 30 teams out there that could use a guy’s expertise like that. I’m tired of some of these guys, I really am. That’s it. Let’s go to baseball.”
Stone found himself in another free-for-all over the weekend when he trolled Sox fans for whining above and beyond the call of duty about La Russa and the struggling team. He seemed to endorse the idea of complaining fans jumping off the Sox bandwagon.
“We seem to have hit a nexus,” Stone tweeted. “I call it thinning out the herd. For those of you heading for the exits, adios. For those of you who want the coaches fired, the manager gone, the players traded and the owner replaced. That’s not practical. Welcome to a less bitter world all others.”
La Russa, meanwhile, has been nothing but complimentary toward ticked-off Sox fans, repeating that they have the right to be upset about a team that has underachieved. He said he was OK with fans booing him rather than the players,
“I’ve said it 100 times, man, I like that they’re here and they care,” La Russa said last week. “And if they’re displeased and it’s with me, I’d rather them be here and care than not care and not be here.”
That was before the Sox lost three of four to the Baltimore Orioles, which simply added to the angst.
So here were are again, potentially facing a long, hot summer without a winning baseball team on either side of town.
The two embattled managers are trying to keep their heads, while all around them, everyone is losing theirs.
