La Russa crying in his beer
Cards manager says he 'pulled out all the stops' to warn Josh Hancock about drinking, but he needs to do even more to make a real difference
It was Wrigley Field, the wind was roaring out, you know the rest.
But as I waited for Pujols to appear, I glanced at the glass-doored refrigerator in the middle of the locker room and was stunned to see it loaded with beer.
I don't know why this stunned me.
I'm not new to this business. I remember when almost every clubhouse was stocked with beer and cigarettes and chewing tobacco in fancy display holders.
I remember when Jack Lambert, the middle linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, had an ashtray bolted to the side of his locker.
I remember when margaritas were served in the press box after a Cowboys game at Texas Stadium, to us ink-stained wretches, no less.
I remember being in the Minnesota Twins clubhouse in the late 1980s and seeing maybe half a dozen players -- mostly pitchers, as I recall -- puffing away on their Winstons and Marlboros post-game.
I was there to talk to reliever Jeff Reardon, and we chatted through a veil of blue smoke billowing from his mouth.
No big deal.
But times change, and here was all this beer in the Cardinals locker room -- several different kinds, as I recall vaguely; all Anheuser-Busch products, no doubt -- and it just seemed odd.
I stepped into the tiny manager's office down the hallway to say hello to Tony La Russa.
The Cardinals' skipper was there at his desk, shirtless, texting messages on his Blackberry.
He didn't look up at first, and I waited.
I was stunned to see the large indigo tattoo that covers his right shoulder and extends down his upper arm.
I didn't know La Russa, 62, even had a tattoo.
I don't know why this mattered or why it stunned me.
I don't know why I even made a mental note of it.
But since Cardinals relief pitcher Josh Hancock died last Sunday in a car wreck in St. Louis, while drunk -- and perhaps, toxicology reports may determine, stoned on marijuana -- it has all flooded back, images that mean nothing in themselves, but somehow seem interconnected in random, subliminal, perhaps unwitting and complex ways.
The problem, of course, is that the 29-year old Hancock -- eulogized so quickly, vilified almost as swiftly -- had shown signs of a drinking problem earlier, and his death from speeding headlong into a parked tow truck, with 8.55 grams of pot in his car, and double the legal blood-alcohol in his system, seemed almost predictable.
''When you sign a contract with the Cardinals, you're talked to about these [drinking and drug] issues,'' La Russa said. ''I did have a very serious heart-to-heart with Josh on that Thursday, and here it is [Sunday morning] and he still drank and crashed.''
La Russa, perhaps, was not the best person to give that speech.
One of only two managers in history to win World Series titles in each league, La Russa is a fiery man who just this March was charged with drunken driving in Jupiter, Fla. after falling asleep behind the wheel of his car and sitting through several red lights. His blood-alcohol level was tested at .093, above Florida's legal limit of .08.
''Maybe I could do a better job in my conversations,'' La Russa said of his talk with Hancock, ''but I pulled out all the stops ...''
The trouble is that in baseball, as in other young men's sports, culture speaks louder than words.
You're a tough young guy, you go pedal to the metal, you're full of spit and vinegar, and, by God, you can kick anybody's ass, throw a 100-mile-an-hour speedball, and you're never gonna die.
It's called testosterone.
It's why guys take steroids. It's caveman.
Then you see your hip, famous manager out drinking, and you see the team cooler filled with beer, and you know your club is owned by the very people -- Busch -- who sell more beer in this country than anyone, and you can't stop yourself from going out and acting like a risk-taker from hell.
Young men always have done crazy things.
They always have. They always will.
Confusing the stupid things they do, and will outgrow, with the really dangerous and defective things they do that may kill them or others is where it gets difficult.
But it's critical.
The recent screeching outrage over Bears tight end Greg Olsen's obscene rap music back when he was a freshman in college, for instance, was so over-the-top and hyperventilated that it could only have come from those who have never been teenaged boys or never had teenaged sons.
It detracted from real issues.
The key thing is to help young men do right, to protect them from their worst impulses, to discern when they are dangerous to themselves and society and not just frisky and wild.
Changing baseball's culture would be a start, something the Cardinals seemed to acknowledge when, as of Friday evening, they banned alcohol for good from the clubhouse.
Now, maybe Tony La Russa can change his culture, as well.
