La Russa: Sox season 'a long way from being written'

This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin’s White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

There are times after White Sox losses this season, and there were 40 of them entering Tuesday’s game at home against the Twins, where manager Tony La Russa looked downright distraught.

It’s an offshoot of his mantra focused upon doing all you can to win each day and then worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. But ask La Russa if he’s still having fun managing despite those down moments, as I did during a recent one-on-one interview, and his answer comes in milliseconds.

“Oh, hell yeah,” said a smiling La Russa. “I know the season is a long way from being written.”

This brief question-and-answer session took place before Shohei Ohtani and the Angels beat the White Sox last Wednesday night in Anaheim. Imagine how much fun La Russa had this past weekend, as his team swept the Giants in San Francisco.

La Russa, who turns 78 on Oct. 4, is in his 35th season as a Major League manager and in his second run with the White Sox. He’s seen the good, the bad and the ugly over the course of his three World Series championships and six pennants, but aside from a few special squads, he’s rarely seen a comfortable run from start to finish over the true test that is a 162-game regular season.

In terms of when the game is played, two main factors come into play in La Russa’s mind, in a theory he said was espoused by Gene Mauch. No. 1 is being ready to compete, and La Russa said, aside from an 11-1, Game 1 loss during a doubleheader in Cleveland on April 20, the White Sox have fulfilled that goal without issue.

“But the second point is, if that’s all you do, the decision is about who plays the best baseball,” La Russa said. “You can have the most talented team and they are taking bad at-bats, missing cutoff men, not running. And you can have another team that is fundamentally correct, making plays and making pitches and you can win.

“That’s the magic of this game. That’s what we preach. Already this year, the worst part is the best part, and that is there are legitimate expectations here. That’s the best part, and the worst part is, when we struggle like we’ve struggled, you are not going to ask fans to look for everything that goes on. They look at what the score is.”

Losing results, especially at home, have led to "Fire Tony" chants from the crowd. But nobody takes these losses as hard as La Russa, who is his own worst critic.

“I’ve been through it a lot. I’m very accountable to me,” La Russa said. “Nobody is ever going to tell me you screwed up. I’ll know things I screwed up that nobody else noticed.

“Jack Buck, when we were together, said the best compliment I can give you -- you are as big of a fan as any of our fans. And that’s the truth. I suffer like they do, and I don’t like them suffering. It’s not fun. But I have no problem being held accountable, because down deep I’m here to make things better. When they are not better, I’ll take the heat.”