Top 7: Tony La Russa's Favorite Players

Two Friday the 13ths in a row! Condolences go out to those out there who are afraid of certain dates that occur on calendars. Last week, the top 7 took a look at Tony LaRussa’s least favorite players of all-time. 

By far the biggest omission was Ron Gant. Gant even went so far to say LaRussa was racist after he left the Cardinals. Personally, I think that it was more of LaRussa being fed up that a seven-year-old could have struck Gant out at the end of his career as long as he could throw him a ball low and outside.

After last week’s list of La Russa “enemies," it’s natural to take a look this week at the La Russa favorites. Some are legitimate, others are legitimate head-scratchers, and still others make you wonder whether the guy in question threatened to take an endangered muskrat hostage. Onto the list.

7. Miguel Cairo

In 2007, the Cardinals were horrible and out of the race in September.  They had plenty of young guys that could have used some playing time in the majors during that month with the Cardinals going nowhere. Instead, Miguel Cairo trotted out there almost every day. Cairo had two different stints with the Cardinals, and inexplicably was in the lineup in strange positions on the field and in order on a frequent basis.

6. Craig Paquette

LaRussa had a long-term man crush on Paquette that spanned his days in Oakland and St. Louis. In 1994, he had one of the most atrocious partial seasons by a non-pitcher that I have seen—7 for 49 with two extra-base hits.  He also struck out 14 times and walked zero times.  He was rewarded the following year with 283 at-bats. 

In fact, his K/BB ratio should be in a museum: 108/14 one year, 88/12 in another, 38/6 in another, good for a 620 to 120 ratio during his career. 

Paquette was one of Cardinal fans’ least favorite players for another reason too: During the end of McGwire’s run, he would be the guy in his place. Many obscenities were screamed his name’s way on the scoreboard.

5. Dave Duncan

Even though LaRussa never managed his longtime pitching coach, he likes him so much that he cracks the list at No. 5. Duncan played eleven seasons as a catcher in the majors in the 60s and 70s.

Now, his specialty is taking pitchers who no one wanted anything to do with and turning them into halfway decent starters or relievers.  His accomplishments: Garrett Stephenson, 16 wins; Kent Bottenfield, 18 wins; Todd Wellemeyer, 13 wins.  He and LaRussa almost have a Miagi/Daniel thing going on it seems like.

4. Jason Isringhausen

Every couple of years, “Bad Izzy” would show up during the Cards’ season, a guy who couldn’t get a T-ball player out. It got to the point where fans began to wonder what in the world he had to do to lose the closer’s job. Isringhausen’s closer job with LaRussa was like a Supreme Court justice’s reign.

3. Mark McGwire

When McGwire first came to the Cardinals in 1997, he was hitting well under .200 for the first month or so. LaRussa made the Busch Stadium scoreboard operators change his stats from NL-only to his combined AL/NL to make them look better. He actually started a trend, as ESPN and other outlets  began doing this on occasion as well (it does make sense after all).

LaRussa continues to be one of the only people on the face of the earth who continues to defend McGwire amidst all of the steroid crap.

2. Rick Ankiel

When Ankiel came back to the majors in 2007 and hit his first home run, LaRussa showed approximately 19 trillion times more emotion than when Albert Pujols hit one of the most amazing home runs in history off of Brad Lidge. In fact, if you totaled up all of the satisfied emotion that LaRussa has ever shown besides the playoff series wins in 2006, Ankiel’s first homer exceeded that.

1. Albert Pujols

In 2003, LaRussa called Pujols the best player that he had ever managed. This was only Pujols’s third season, and LaRussa had managed McGwire and Rickey Henderson in his career.  It was high praise. Six years later, Pujols is already one of the best right-handed hitters of all-time.

He also makes LaRussa’s job easy. He said earlier in the spring that the only guy who could go hitless all spring and play Opening Day was Pujols. It’s nice to just be able to tell a guy to hit at least .330 with 35 homers and single-handedly win 10 games for you during the season, and he’ll do it for you…every year.