La Russa gets Presidential call
Manager Tony La Russa was spending time with some of his best and furriest friends Thursday morning when his phone twittered. There are few calls that take him away from a tour of an animal rescue shelter or a conversation about the need to have and hold and save pets.
This was one.
“That was the White House,” the manager explained. “The President wants me to greet him at the airport.”
Post-Dispatch staff writer par excellence Elizabethe Holland was kind enough to provide the on-the-spot reporting for this blog entry. La Russa told us yesterday that he would spend part of his off day at Stray Rescue of St. Louis as it was competing for a $1-million makeover of its shelter. Judges for the contest were in town today and a festival of sorts welcomed them. Supporters brought their animals and La Russa was one of several local two-legged celebrities in attendance.
The winner of the contest will be announced May 21 in USA Today.
It was during a tour of the facility that La Russa’s phone rang with the invitation from the White House. President George W. Bush is visiting St. Louis on Air Force One on Friday (read more about it over at Jo Mannies’ “Political Fix”), and he wondered if La Russa had the time to meet him at the airport.
La Russa has a previous engagement Friday night, but said he’d be happy to be at the airport Friday morning to see Air Force One pull in.
The manager and the former owner of the Texas Rangers have crossed paths many times since both of them left the American League for other endeavors. Bush threw out the first pitch at old Busch a few seasons ago, emerging from the dugout at just about the same spot La Russa stood for all those years. And, after the 2006 World Series victory, Bush hosted the Cardinals at the White House.
Then-shortstop David Eckstein once told me about being pulled aside into a room at the White House to stand with La Russa, then-general manager Walt Jocketty, and chair Bill DeWitt Jr. as they waited for the President. Those five would be the last people to go to the dais, and they had some time to kill.
“The President came in,” Eckstein said, “and had all these questions for us. He just wanted to talk a little baseball.”
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Derrick Goold told everyone he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but really after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was drawn to MU's primo location between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball inbetween. 
How about this, all of you shut up! You guys are worse than the folks on the editorial board. The story was simply about Don Tony meeting with the President Friday morning. THAT’S IT! It wasn’t talking about politics at all! When the leader of the free world calls and asks if you’d like to meet him at the airport to chat or whatever they are going to do, you do it! Simple as that! We should all be so lucky to be held in the same regard as Tony is. Get over yourselves.