After the Cardinals charmed and captivated the entire baseball nation by winning the remarkable sixth game of the 2011 World Series, manager Tony La Russa allowed himself to relax for a while.

La Russa's wife Elaine was at his side. He was smiling. A fine meal awaited them. His amazing, resolute team had done it again. Life was good. This was something you don't often see: a mellow TLR.

But this wouldn't be Tony La Russa unless he was already thinking ahead, about what he had to do next. As the Cardinals began filing into the clubhouse Friday to prepare for Game 7, La Russa got the message across.

"Put Game 6 in a box," La Russa said. "And put it away."

The manager went to key veterans, including Albert Pujols. He asked them to speak to the other players, especially the young Cardinals. The team had to make sure to reset its focus.

"You just can't come today feeling great vibes about last night," La Russa said after the Cardinals eliminated the Texas Rangers 6-2 in World Series Game 7. "Texas is too tough and we've got to make sure we're ready to compete because if we got beat (in Game 7), then it was a good story. Now that we've won it, it makes (Game 6) greater.

"It's just typical of our club ... I mean, it's hard to explain how we made it happen except the club has great guts. Really we have more talent than people think, but we have great guts."

Yes, and the Cardinals' collective personality and toughness come from La Russa. He's managed to ingrain the mentality in his team. He has been doing it for 33 years, the last 16 in St. Louis. And this ability to get a team to buy in and see the competition through his eyes, to feel it through his heart, has made La Russa one of the most successful managers in major-league history.

Does La Russa have bad games? Absolutely. All managers do. After making strange decisions Monday in the 4-2 loss to the Rangers in Game 5, La Russa got blasted on television, radio, print and the Internet by media and fans. He didn't like it; he was even taken aback by it. But La Russa, the old street fighter, immediately shook it off.

The Cardinals were down 3-2 in the World Series, and had to win the final two games, so La Russa focused on getting the job done. When La Russa locks his legendary single-minded focus on a specific goal, there's no distracting him.

"He's driven to win and nothing gets in the way of that," Cardinals pitcher Kyle Lohse said before the start of the World Series. "Tony is all about trying to figure out a way to win the next game in front of him."

So the Cardinals won Game 6 in an unprecedented manner, finally prevailing over the Rangers after launching five different comebacks. La Russa put the trauma of Game 5 aside. Then he put the jubilation of Game 6 aside.

The two wildly contrasting results were handled the same way: with a disciplined, forward-thinking approach. With total dedication to the next test on the schedule And after each instance — a deflating loss, and an ecstatic triumph — the Cardinals were ready to play the next game. And starting with La Russa's decision to go with ace Chris Carpenter on short rest, La Russa's handling of Game 7 was pretty much flawless.

There is nothing wrong with criticizing a manager for game decisions gone wrong; that's baseball. But here's what La Russa's most obsessed critics miss: strategies are imperfect because humans that play and manage the game are imperfect. A manager's entire body of work is more meaningful and accurate. How many games have La Russa's Cardinals won through the resilient, unshakable attitude installed by their leader? That's a rare quality and La Russa definitely has it.

"That guy deserves all the credit," World Series MVP David Freese said after Game 7. "You know, he rallies the troops. He's got a plan with every thought, with everything he says. He's got a great idea of what it takes to not only win a game but to get to this point."

Think about what the Cardinals went through in the 2011 season. The loss of Adam Wainwright. The injuries to Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, Freese, Allen Craig, Kyle McClellan, Skip Schumaker, Nick Punto. This team put players on the disabled list 17 times. On Aug. 24 they were 101/2 games behind in the race for the final NL playoff spot. There was La Russa's illness (the shingles). And pitching coach Dave Duncan's family crisis.

The Cardinals were the underdogs going into all three postseason rounds. They trailed Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Texas in each postseason series. And this is only a short list of the challenges. But this team still found the spirit, the determination, to survive every test. They became World Series champions.

I am convinced of this: the Cardinals do not win Game 6 with any other manager at the helm. Just when we thought — back in mid-August — that La Russa might be getting stale in the job, he rallied himself and his team.

"That game was our shining moment," outfielder Lance Berkman said. "That game was a perfect reflection of what this team embodies, that never-say-die mind-set. Keep fighting until they finally put you away. But nobody could put us away. And that's why we're standing here as champions."

Earlier in the postseason, Berkman was asked to offer an opinion on what makes La Russa such a great manager. "This team reflects La Russa more than you see other teams reflect their manager," he said. "He's an ultra-competitive manager, and his teams have that competitive personality. It's a direct connection, or otherwise you wouldn't see the consistent winning that's taken place in St. Louis."

La Russa has managed this franchise through one of its most prosperous and historically prominent eras. Here's just a partial accounting of what the Cardinals have accomplished over his 16 seasons:

• The most postseason wins (50) by a National League team. That's 12 more than Atlanta, the next NL team on the list.

• The most postseason series won by an NL team, 12. That's five more than the next NL team on the list, Atlanta.

• Most NL pennants, with three.

• Two World Series championships, tied with Florida for the most in the NL since '96. But Florida won the titles with different managers, Jim Leyland (1997) and Jack McKeon (2003.)

• A total of 1,408 regular-season wins, second in the NL to Atlanta's 1,478.

La Russa joined Billy Southworth as the only two managers in Cardinals' history to lead the franchise to multiple World Series championships. And he is only one of nine managers in MLB history to win three or more World Series titles.

La Russa will likely return in 2012. But I wonder if he may reconsider and decide to retire after winning his sport's maximum prize. If La Russa retires, he would go out on top. And that would be appropriate.

In 2011, La Russa turned in one of the best managing jobs of his career despite having to cope with the pain and discomfort of his illness. He has to manage while taking heavy medication. This couldn't have been easy for a 67-year-old man. The shingles were so severe, La Russa had to leave the team for a week in May to receive special medical attention.

"Tony always prides himself with being prepared and even though he was not feeling 100 percent, he never wavered in his work ethic," GM John Mozeliak said. "He never used it as an excuse and most of all he never wanted to leave the team."

La Russa did have to leave the team; he had no choice.

The team never left him.

La Russa's strength became their strength. His willpower became their willpower. And on a magical Friday night at Busch Stadium, the manager and his players shared the unrestrained joy of winning the World Series.