Tony La Russa’s HoF Logo Decision Offends Cardinals Fan

Jun 9, 2013; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago White Sox former manager Tony La Russa throws out the ceremonial first pitch before the game against the Oakland Athletics at US Cellular Field. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

In our present cultural environment it seems everyone is eager to make a controversy out of everything. Even silly meaningless piddly things like cornerbacks going on non-profane rants at the end of football games. And decisions about what logo to have on one’s Hall of Fame plaque.

Unbelievably, these shameless controversy-mongers managed to spin a tiny story about Greg Maddux and Tony La Russa entering the Hall sans logo into a major thing that everyone should be outraged about. And certain fans willingly took up the cause, because they are psychotically nuts and have no sense of proportion whatsoever.

One Cardinals fan – I hesitate to use the term butt hurt, but it really does apply here, more than that term possibly has ever applied anywhere – got so offended by La Russa’s logo decision that he actually said La Russa’s legacy is now tainted. Yes fans. Somehow all that stuff La Russa did for the Cardinals – like returning them to relevance after years of not mattering a lick – means less because his Hall of Fame plaque won’t have a Cardinals logo on it.

Here’s what this guy wrote (I picture a disheveled individual in a puke stained Vince Coleman throwback angrily two-finger-hammering between pulls from a vodka bottle):

Nobody feared La Russa when he once wore the White Sox jersey, a logo and franchise emblematic of perennial losing surpassed only by their brothers to the north. Nobody feared La Russa in the hideous green-and-yellow costumes of Oakland as he mechanically churned out American League power-hitting lineups. Despite the occasional screaming match, La Russa was just another boring manager playing baseball by the boring rules of the American League.

But people feared La Russa as a Cardinal. He scrambled the National League with his mind games, his confounding lineups, and his increasingly-antagonistic style of play. The tougher, gutsier play in the National League inspired La Russa, and he rose to the challenges the altered style presented. In the process, he became the most feared manager in baseball, a simmering cauldron of neuroses, defiance, and intensity. Over the course of 16 us-against-them seasons, La Russa unnerved every team in the League while driving his Cardinals into the most successful era in a storied franchise’s history.

Now, in the interest of fairness, La Russa wants to go into the Hall of Fame as a nobody? After 16 seasons of viciously defending the principles of “The Cardinal Way” — standards he completely redefined during his tenure — he wants to meekly step away from that legacy so that he doesn’t offend White Sox fans who barely remember his mediocre time there? That’s gutless. He might as well show up at Cooperstown with a g**damned puppy on his head.

That guy didn’t just drink the Kool Aid, he mainlined the Kool Aid. I can’t even begin to comprehend the insecurity at work here. If this guy were a woman he’d be a stripper who lets guys take her down the alley and whip her with a belt while she screams “daddy.”

You know what a sane fan does in this situation? He says, “Oh, whatever.” And wishes Tony La Russa the best as he receives the greatest honor a baseball manager can receive.

A psychotic fan who spends too much time on message boards convinces himself that he and all other fans of his super-dedicated ilk have been dissed and rants about it, with swear words and colorful imagery. Because getting a life isn’t an option.

In this guy’s world, a man wanting to acknowledge the whole of his career and the full scope of his accomplishments, many of which were achieved outside the Cardinals bubble by the way, is a gutless move. In most people’s worlds, it’s a classy gesture worthy of exactly one second of mildly interested attention.

I sincerely hope this guy is just trolling. I hope he’s just controversy-mongering in Skip Bayless fashion. I hope he’s just whoring out his soul for the hits. Cause if he’s serious? There is one dangerous dude lurking around out there. Notify law enforcement.

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