'The Right Guy' La Russa Proves To Be The Right Choice For Sox

CHICAGO — White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson and Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa were never destined to be baseball BFF’s.

Heck, there was a time when it seemed the bat-flipping All-Star and his 76-year-old manager would never see eye to eye. Anderson is new school. La Russa is part of baseball’s old guard and, to many, seemed too much of a curmudgeon to have any meaningful impact on a young team built for bigger things.

Yet on Thursday, just moments after the Sox clinched their first American League Central Division championship since 2008, Anderson — with a celebratory cap flipped backward — did his Hall of Fame skipper a solid. Asked what La Russa meant to a team chock-full of young stars, Anderson unapologetically uttered the words many perhaps never expected to hear.

I think we got the right guy.

It’s a sentiment many Sox fans have avoided despite the fact La Russa kept the Sox sailing in the right direction all season. La Russa was never the popular choice for this job. He was owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s hand-picked successor, one who flipped a proverbial bird at conventional wisdom and at the fans who complained there was no way someone three times the age of his players could ever amount to anything.

Fans looked past La Russa’s pedigree as the owner of three World Series championships — the last which came in 2011. A second drunken driving arrest that took place shortly before La Russa was introduced didn’t exactly make him the toast of a town that has soaked up two World Series titles since 2005 — one on either side of the city’s baseball landscape.

All fans preferred to see was baseball’s AARP poster boy and not the baseball mind that once guided the Sox to a 1983 division title, only to be fired a few years later by then-general manager Ken “Hawk” Harrelson. Asked Thursday what it meant to win his second division title with the Sox 38 years apart, La Russa quickly connected the two in a way a baseball man with his years of experience could.

“Even though I was kicked out of the family, I’ve always been a White Sox fan,” La Russa said after his team’s 7-2 win over Cleveland. “You come back and it’s like Fantasy Island. I would have never thought I could get this opportunity, especially with a club this good — and here we are, division champions.”

Drink that in, White Sox fans. Despite the clamoring over his hiring, despite the obstacles and the myriad injuries the Sox played through en route to Thursday’s division-clinching title, La Russa saw this team though. It wasn't always pretty, and there was plenty of room to poke holes in some of La Russa's thinking. But the job got done with La Russa at the helm.

Now, the reason for Reinsdorf for bringing La Russa back gets put to the real test.

The division title means nothing if La Russa can’t get his team refocused on the bigger picture. After the Sox were dispatched by Oakland in three games in 2020, the goal and the Sox skipper’s challenge is to get his team to realize the wins get bigger than this. But La Russa, again playing on his experience, has a plan.

“Winning never gets old,” La Russa said Thursday. “It gets better. You appreciate it more because of what everyone had to do to get here, and that’s the message for the guys and all of the first-timers. It can get better, and it can get better this year.”

Whether the Sox can build enough momentum to keep this feeling rolling through October remains the task again. With regular-season games remaining at home against the Reds and Tigers, the Sox likely face a divisional playoff series against Houston. The Sox have the talent to make a lengthy run.

Anderson said Thursday the Sox didn’t like the taste of getting pushed out of the first round by Oakland last season. He vowed this year will be different and so will the results. The script seems to be in place.

Different team, different year, different manager — and, according to Anderson, the right manager.

“You see how competitive he is. He wants to win every game,” Anderson said Thursday. “That’s what you want in a manager. … So far, I’m just pleased with the way he handled everything and the way he continued to come in and be part of the family.”