Bryant Gumbel on Tony La Russa & the HOF

[Dead Simmons]

“La Russa is being honored for guiding teams he managed to 2,728 wins — a total that ranks third in baseball history. But here’s the rub — about 43 percent of all of those wins were recorded when La Russa was managing Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco and winning because of their prodigious power. That’s the same Mark McGwire who has been denied inclusion in the Hall because voters believe that prodigious power owed a great deal to steroids.

 

“By what logic can the guardians of the Hall vilify McGwire for his pharmaceutically assisted feats — yet glorify La Russa, who benefitted most from those same feats — and who, by the way, conveniently played dumb while his slugger morphed into the Incredible Hulk?

 

“Look, I’ve nothing against Tony La Russa — nor have I great admiration for Mark McGwire — but it’s hard to understand how the Hall can shame one and fame the other when their achievements are so interdependent. I mean, if La Russa truly deserves induction to the Hall, how do you not make room for the guy who got him there?” (end quote)

 

It's about time somebody with a national voice brought this up. The Real Sports program will be shown several more times in the coming weeks on HBO. In my opinion TLR is the biggest fraud in the history of American sports.

 

I wonder if Pete Rose has any thoughts on the issue?

 

http://oncardautos.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/larussa-and-big-mac.jpg

 

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Source: HBO's Gumbel questions La Russa's Hall of Fame worthiness

[logan82]

Steroids comes up quite often in any LaRussa discussion around here. Hopefully at some point people will see LaRussa for the villain he has always been.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Awesome.

[torts]

duckface. larussa is duckfacing. UGH.