Tony La Russa has been around baseball for a long time, and as respected as he is, he knows how to get under the skin of his opponents.
La Russa, now managing the Chicago White Sox, has a reputation for being great at his job, but also traditional. If there was a moment where he could reasonably call for a guy to get plunked, he’d do it. Even in embracing bat flips, it came with a caveat that it had to be "sincere".
Just like how some players have beef with one another, so too do some managers. And appearing on Audacy’s “Unwritten: Behind Baseball’s Secret Rules” podcast with Jimmy Rollins and Ron Darling, former Philadelphia Phillies manager Larry Bowa said he relished the opportunity to spar with La Russa.
“We’re good friends now, but there’s one: Tony La Russa," Bowa said. "It’s unbelievable, every single time they would hit one of our players and I would retaliate, he’d go ‘Well, you have to have better control of that.’ And I’d go what about J-Rol or (Pat) Burrell?’ (And he’d respond) 'Oh that wasn’t on purpose.’ But Tony La Russa, I was waiting for something to happen, and we’re good friends right now, believe me.
“That’s one guy that seemed like even if we came inside on somebody he would take his glasses off and come up to the top step, that was the guy that stands out in my mind.”
You don’t manage in the majors for as long as La Russa has without making some enemies along the way. Clearly, he did a good job of building a rivalry with Bowa and the Phillies.
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