Tony La Russa is already embarrassing the Chicago White Sox organization.
The Chicago White Sox made a very strange decision when they decided to hire Tony La Russa to be their manager for 2021. It didn’t seem like a good fit because of the fact that he hadn’t been in the game as a manager for a decade and he was a 76-year-old man coming into coach one of the youngest teams in the league. With that said, if you can coach, you can coach. Well, ever since that point La Russa has really embarrassed the organization.
It wasn’t bad enough last week when Tim Anderson told the media that La Russa hadn’t once reached out to him yet. There has been a lot of speculation about some bumpy roads coming up between these two because of their individual styles. It certainly isn’t good to hear that a player of Anderson’s importance hasn’t been reached out to yet.
Now, the problem is that we wish that was the biggest issue for La Russa right now. On Monday night, Jeff Passan of ESPN hit us all with a big piece of news while we were trying to enjoy some Monday Night Football on the network he works for.
Chicago White Sox manager Tony La Russa was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in February and charged with DUI a day before the team hired him, according to court records obtained by ESPN.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 10, 2020
News with @pinepaula and @MoynihanCharles: https://t.co/C1lHlik4Zl
The day before the White Sox hired La Russa, he was charged with a DUI for an arrest that took place in February. He allegedly ran his car into a curb in Arizona. That is something that makes the White Sox organization look very good right now. It wasn’t a popular hire, to begin with, and now it comes out that he is getting DUIs as recently as February. It was the second one he had received in his life.
Tony La Russa had informed the #WhiteSox about his DUI charge stemming from February arrest, and his job remains secure, officials insist. https://t.co/bYJ0nIA2hu
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) November 10, 2020
Bob Nightengale has been off with his news a lot but to his credit, all of his White Sox news throughout the offseason has been spot on. He clearly is well in tune with the organization. He put it out there that a White Sox spokesperson insisted that the White Sox knew about this incident and that his job was safe. As mentioned before, it isn’t the best look for the White Sox right now.
La Russa is a Hall of Fame manager and although the hiring process was extremely annoying, it could work out from a baseball perspective. With that said, driving under the influence is not good at all and is something that warrants big time punishment. It doesn’t sound like the White Sox are going to do anything about it which is sad.
This whole hire has been bad from the beginning. AJ Hinch and Alex Cora are already hired to other teams but there are still other good names out there. It would be nice to see the White Sox take care of this issue now and move on. This is a phenomenal young team that they shouldn’t waste. If they play their cards right, they can win a World Series. If Tony La Russa ruins any chance of that, it would really be a shame.