To this point in time, Connie Mack is the only person to manage in the major leagues after having been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame as a manager. (Others have served as managers after being elected to the Hall as players.)
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| CONNIE MACK |
Mack was elected to the Hall in 1937, when he was assumed to be in the home stretch of a career that had already gone on for 40 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates (1894-1896) and Philadelphia Athletics (since 1901). But Mack was able to manage the A’s for as long as he liked, because he owned the franchise. He continued on for another 13 years without adding to his total of nine American League pennants and five world championships, finally retiring after the 1950 season at the age of 87.
Tony LaRussa, 76, will become the second member of Mack’s exclusive club when the White Sox play their first game of the 2021 season. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2014 when seemingly retired after 33 seasons with the White Sox (1979-1986), Oakland Athletics (1986-1995), and St. Louis Cardinals (1996-2011).
LaRussa was fired during the 1986 season by Sox general manager Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, who had come from and soon returned to the broadcast booth. “Over the years, every time the subject of the 1986 season surfaced, I have been crucified in Chicago,” Harrelson wrote in his autobiography. “It’s as if I am the guy who traded Babe Ruth or caused the Black Sox scandal or lit the first match to ignite the Chicago Fire of 1871.”
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| TONY LaRUSSA |
LaRussa’s departure was a pill that seemed to grow more bitter for chairman Jerry Reinsdorf with each passing year. And now it has been flushed away. No doubt Reinsdorf is overjoyed (and he is the boss, after all), but many White Sox fans are dismayed, and there is good reason to wonder whether general manager Rick Hahn is on board with the hire and whether he even had anything to do with it.
“This is an opportunity for us as an organization,” Hahn said when Rick Renteria was let go less than three weeks ago. “We’ve obviously been somewhat insular in terms of our managerial hirings over the last several years. This is an opportunity for us to speak to individuals with other organizations that have had success and learn from them and get their sort of outsider objective perspective on our organization.” All that went out the window when it turned out that LaRussa was interested in the job.
No one knows yet whether LaRussa’s homecoming on the South Side will produce the ending that Reinsdorf is hoping for--but given the current state of the White Sox’ roster, it seems that LaRussa has at least a fighting chance to add to his current cache of six pennants and three world championships before he hangs it up for keeps.
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