While the White Sox and Tony La Russa have dodged the media thus far, they also dodged a couple bullets, because neither of the team's award candidates over the past two days were able to secure their respective honor. Luis Robert was a runner-up to Kyle Lewis for Rookie of the Year on Monday, and Rick Renteria took second place behind Kevin Cash for Manager of the Year on Tuesday.
Had Robert won his award, everybody would have bemoaned the fact that La Russa's pre-hiring DUI charge overshadowed why this team excited the baseball world. Had Renteria somehow beaten Cash, it would have supplied critics with a very simple rhetorical jab -- the White Sox let go of an award-winning manager for this?
Renteria also spared them some awkwardness by declining to appear on MLB Network's award show. Instead, his choice made the visual presentation awkward for the network, which displayed a still image of a mask-wearing Renteria alongside live video of Cash and the other finalist, Toronto's Charlie Montoyo.
Both finished as justifiable silver medalists, which is the kind of result that gets relegated to a paragraph in a "Sox notes" article. Some might argue that Robert would have provided a distraction from the La Russa news, but I can't see that. An award recognizes a two-month body of work among a limited field that was completed more than a month ago. The La Russa mess is still a smoldering wreck, and that gets novelty points for determining newsworthiness.
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Speaking of which, while La Russa still hasn't spoken about the charges, ESPN relayed his words on the night of his arrest by obtaining the police report from Arizona. The details are worth learning for the sake of accuracy in present and future discussions, because they could get lost underneath some pretty memorable verbiage.
Before the arresting officer placed him in a vehicle, La Russa said: "Do you see my ring?" When asked what he meant, La Russa answered: "I'm a Hall of Famer baseball person." He continued: "I'm legit. I'm a Hall of Famer, brother. You're trying to embarrass me."
This is equal parts amusing and disturbing. Some people picked up on "legit." Some read La Russa's dropping of "brother" in Hulk Hogan's voice. Some matched the cadence of "Hall of Famer baseball person" to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." There are at least three notes to riff on for the foreseeable future.
It's also a problem, because if La Russa resorted to do-you-know-who-I-am to try to evade this stop, it raises the question of how many times that's gotten him out of previous incidents. On the other hand, it does answer the question of why La Russa was so dismissive and judgmental about the "sincerity" of police brutality protests, because it appears the officer afforded him a certain amount of belligerence. Doesn't everybody get the same?
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Marcus Stroman is on record -- at least Twitter record -- of saying he has no interest in playing for La Russa, which would apparently take one of the market's top starting pitchers out of play.
The best pitcher on the market sounded a lot more ambivalent about the situation.
Trevor Bauer waxed rhetorical, philosophical, hypothetical and other "cals" during a 20-minute soliloquy on his YouTube page (thanks to Garry for alerting me). You can watch the whole thing if you'd like ...
... but the key part pops up at the 15-minute mark, when Bauer describes his own approach.
Would it affect me, having a manager that has some issues like that off the field? It might. It might not. Generally speaking, I'm fairly forgiving until I meet someone in person, and have them interact with me, and judge their character for myself. I don't like going based on anybody else's judge of character. I like to actually meet someone and have a conversation.
So I'm sure in my free agency, that process would be important to me -- that I can talk to the manager of whatever team that I'm going to sign with, and just get to know him and understand what his principles are, how he manages, his style and stuff like that.
Bauer sounded more concerned about whether somebody like La Russa is open-minded enough to appreciate how differently players prepare and present themselves in 2020. It's a legit issue for him, given that his career got off to a false start with the Diamondbacks for such reasons, but he didn't appear to be in any rush to rule out a potential suitor.
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The White Sox get a one-day break from awards season today before the main event -- José Abreu's bid for Most Valuable Player on Thursday. That's also the day that ESPN 1000 is supposed to announce their new flagship partnership with the White Sox.
If you're waiting for the White Sox and/or La Russa to offer comments, I'd imagine they'll wait until after, lest they trample on a new business partner and the momentous achievement of the franchise's most beloved current player. Unlike ROY or MOY, the MVP award is hefty enough accomplishment to take hold of a news cycle for a day or two, especially if nobody brings anything new to the table here. Should Abreu join Robert and Renteria in finishing second, the La Russa debacle gives everybody a fallback option.
(Photo by Jerome Davis/Icon Sportswire)
