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 said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting 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 in between. 
Tony stay away from the president
too bad bush should not even be president he lost by half a million votes…then he goes on to bankcrupt this nation, start a war that only benefits him and his cronnies, and does all this with a F&%#ing smirk!!
But if we continue to belive the BS the media feeds us we will continue to be fatasses!!
BARACK ‘08 For real CHANGE!!
Don’t care what you say to that!! It is the TRUTH!!
I would rather have a president caught with his pants down, than one with his hands in our pockets. All I know is how much worse our economy is now, than it was before President Bush came into office. I can only hope that “we the people” will vote for the best person to turn this country around.
Although we have gotten off the subject of sports, this has been one of the most interesting blogs I have ever read.
Congatulations to all of you.
Freedom of speech forever!
I can’t believe how much hatred liberals have in them. President Bush has arguably been president in one of the roughest periods of this country’s history. I can only shudder at the thought of a President Gore or a President Kerry and how messed up this country would be then. That said, leave the politics at home in your alter to George Soros!
It seems that Dan is a very troubled person. His emotional flatulence spills out in complete congruence with his low intellect. Not only is he misinformed about the true nature of most of the problems in this world, he continues to spout the KoolAid given to him by the real perpetrators of these maladies. It’s a shame that we cannot re-institute a higher standard of voting requirements, as these Dan-like types continue to show up at the polls and make ill-informed choices at the direction of liberal terrorists like George Soros. Bush’s presidency did not fulfill the highest aspirations of many of us, but at least he is a principled man trying to do the right things for this country - unlike his predecessor who succumbed to the most base impulses when he should have been guarding his country against terrorists. Dan doesn’t seem capable of understanding even the most rudimentary explanations for winning the war against global terror, but at least he can go to sleep tonight knowing that someone is standing guard. And it’s not a liberal Bush basher.
Now, back to baseball.
fear mongers got us into this mess!! I think fellow bushies still belive Iraq had WMD and the world is flat. No one argues the fact that there is terror in the world, But who is creating the majority of the terror is a ligitimate question.
Bush should be making his baseball-related phone calls from a prison cell, not the white house.
Um.. did I say the “do nothing Democratic congress”? no, I said “Congress”.. that covers Republicans, Democrats, Green, Whigs, et al.
They work for 10 months of a two year term, then run for office the other 14..
And to go more on the “do nothing”, what exactly has Congress done since the last election?
Since this isn’t about baseball, I’d say thanks to Tony for his support of animals, and to all you president haters, enjoy that tax rebate! Thanks Bush! Go Cards, Rams, and Blues! St. Louis Rocks!
To Jeff…NEWSFLASH…..There WERE WMDs……as told by an Iraqi Air Force general who helped move them to Syria while Sadaam was still in power. Dont believe everything the Libs tell you!