- [Narrator] Tony La Russa and Dusty Baker
insisted repeatedly for decades that they were friends,
but it didn't always look that way when their baseball jobs
pitted them against one another
and that happened kind of a lot.
Rivalry seems to have ground
this friendship into beef.
You probably know these guys as managers of some reputation,
Tony La Russa is a champion several times over
and old school in every sense of the word.
The strategy sense,
the unwritten rules sense
and the having to answer for allegations of racism sense.
Dusty Baker is a favorite of players and media
responsible for multiple franchise turnarounds,
but equally responsible for some tragic collapses
that stopped his teams short of a championship.
These are two of the winningest,
best known managers in MLB history.
But to understand their relationship,
go back to their playing days.
In 1971, near the end of his playing career
spent mostly with the Oakland Athletics,
La Russa spent a short stint in Atlanta
where he was briefly the teammate of a young Dusty Baker.
After retiring, La Russa rose up the ranks
and eventually became manager of the Chicago White Sox.
Years later in 1986,
when Hawk Harrelson and the Sox fired Tony,
he turned right around and snagged the job in Oakland
where Dusty was winding down his time as a player.
These two bonded with the Athletics.
Baker says they talked baseball all the time.
Dusty was actually the one who recommended the A's
take a flyer on his old teammate, Dave Stewart.
Baker retired later that year
and says La Russa regretted not immediately hiring him
to coach in Oakland.
That's an interesting hypothetical,
an alternate universe that might not contain beef.
What if La Russa did give Baker his first post playing job?
What if Baker had been part of the managerial staff
that won the 1989 World Series behind the Bash Brothers,
Rickey Henderson, and Baker's pal Stewart as series MVP?
As it happened,
Baker spent that World Series in the other dugout.
He was hitting coach for the national league champion
San Francisco Giants, whom the As swept.
In the 1990s, Baker graduated to manager of the Giants.
And in '96, La Russa slid over
to join Baker in the National League
as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
So now they worked for teams
that played each other frequently,
but I detect little evidence of beef,
at least not between them.
La Russa created his share of controversy,
including feuds with his own players,
but nothing of note with his old friend Dusty
until 2002 when stakes got higher.
Baker's Giants and La Russa's Cardinals
squared off in the NLCS
and civil opposition began to smell like beef.
Things started friendly.
La Russa knew his old colleague
was reaching the end of his contract with the Giants.
He campaigned before the series
for Baker to break the bank with a new deal
and jokingly offered to help negotiate.
And then game one happened.
In front of a stunned St. Louis crowd,
the Giants really beat up
Cardinals starting pitcher, Matt Morris.
San Francisco vet Kenny Lofton turned a 5-1 lead
into 6-1 with a solo home run in the third inning.
Lofton took his time trotting around the bases
which Morris visibly did not enjoy.
In the fifth, the Giants kept pouring it on
and drove Morris out of the game
with the score 7-1.
Soon thereafter, Lofton came up
to face Cardinals reliever Mike Crudale,
and Crudale zipped a fast ball high and inside.
Lofton spun out of the way, had some words with Crudale
and cCrds catcher, Mike Matheny
and then the benches emptied.
It was a regular, silly baseball fracas,
unremarkable for our purposes but for one detail.
Amid the hubbub,
Baker and La Russa could be seen hollering at each other.
Umpires had to get between them.
After the Giants held on to win game one,
the managers explained themselves
invoking all sorts of classic unwritten rule orthodoxy.
According to Baker, La Russa was upset about the Giants
hitting a St. Louis batter earlier in the game,
which he insisted was unintentional.
La Russa counter-insisted that Crudale's pitch inside
also wasn't intentional and he went after Lofton
for overreacting in order to get things stirring.
Okay, but what about how the managers acted?
Baker said, "Listen, we're competitors,
but we're still friends.
There's no thing between us
and we'd have thrown hands if there were.
It was just a discussion, it's over."
La Russa agreed, "These things happen."
It looked to observers
like something more than a discussion.
And the league seemed to agree
hitting each manager with a $500 fine.
La Russa responded with more sniping at Dusty's player,
"Kenny Lofton should pay the fines.
He sparked the controversy."
And for what it's worth,
the Cardinals pitched at Lofton again in game five.
This time it was Morris himself and the pitch hit Kenny.
"Just trying to throw inside," said Morris.
"Obviously not intentional," said La Russa.
Whatever the case, Lofton didn't react this time.
He took his base,
scored the tying run on a Barry Bond sac fly
and then went on to hit this series winning walk-off
in the bottom of the ninth.
Take that Tony.
- [Commentator] The Giants are going to the World Series.
- [Narrator] The Giants did not go on to win at all,
even after taking a 3-2 World Series lead.
Their battle with the Angels turned
after Baker's infamous decision
to pull pitcher Russ Ortiz
midway through his strong game six performance.
Between that collapse and, I guess, La Russa
failing in his duties as Baker's agent,
the Giants opted not to retain Baker.
Dusty moved on to a new job with the Chicago Cubs,
a longstanding division foe of La Russa's Cardinals.
Whatever transpired between Dusty and Tony
during the recent NLCS was now fuel on the rivalry pyre.
One spark could engulf it in flame.
Star Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood said
it wouldn't take his new manager long
to feel the heat of the Chicago-St. Louis feud.
Wood himself headlined the foremost
Cubs-Cardinals controversy of summer 2003.
In July, he threw a brushback pitch to Albert Pujols,
who responded with a home run.
In August, Wood again pitched in on Pujols,
actually grazing the Cardinals slugger.
Pujols said some probably not-nice words in Spanish.
La Russa gave Wood a stare own from the dugout
and talked some trash at Cubs players the rest of the game.
Wood didn't mind.
Baker neither, although he said
he was more of a counter puncher than a puncher,
thereby implying Tony was a puncher, I guess.
While early match-ups merely preheated the beef,
they did prove something about the '03 Cubs.
Chicago was good now under Baker.
Unlike prior seasons, they were ready to compete
with the nearby Cardinals for the NL Central crown.
At the end of August, the Cards took first place,
but the Cubs hung well within reach
heading into a critical five game series at Wrigley Field.
Mark Prior blanked the St. Louis bats
in game one on September 1st.
Chicago inched to a game and a half back of first place.
They meant business.
September 2nd brought a double header
that the teams ultimately split,
but not before a long day of extra innings,
bad baserunning, a couple of hit-by-pitches,
a walk-off, and a lot of rage about bad calls.
24 grumpy innings of baseball stretched over 12 hours.
After the double header,
La Russa turned the heat up a bit
accusing Wood, the Cubs game two starter,
of trying to scare people with pitches inside.
Wood figured La Russa was just firing up his players
but the Cards manager had also fired up his Cubs counterpart
who took La Russa's comments as warning
of retaliation to come.
Said Dusty Baker, "Tricks are for kids.
I don't take kindly to threats."
All this tension finally snapped on September 3rd
in the fourth game of the series.
In the second inning, Cubs starter Matt Clement
hit Cardinals starter Dan Haren with a pitch.
Everyone braced for La Russa's team to return fire
and it didn't take long.
Haren plunked Clement right back in the third.
Umpires tried to warn both benches but it was on.
La Russa came out of the dugout
to do a little finger pointing and tattling.
Baker came out to do a bit of the same
pleading his case with the umpire.
And then they cut out the middleman.
The broadcast caught Baker shouting directly at La Russa
who was back in the dugout.
"WHAT."
- [Narrator] Baker returned to his dugout still fuming
while La Russa glared behind those
sick grandpa sunglasses.
And then they got to shouting again.
This wasn't nice.
This didn't look nice either.
The WGN announcers couldn't safely repeat
what they read on Dusty's lips.
- [Commentator] For those of you who read lips,
he's saying I'm not having a fine time.
- [Narrator] The actual gameplay that day
turned quite exciting.
The Cubs' blistering late-inning rally pulled them
just half a game back of first place.
But all anyone wanted to talk about was beef.
Baker was still pissed off that La Russa's threats,
the ominous comments about Cubs pitchers,
had indeed led to a retaliatory plunking.
After what La Russa had said in the papers,
Baker wasn't going to take any excuses.
La Russa suddenly didn't want to talk about it publicly.
Like, "Ah, well, we'll sort it between ourselves."
And they did.
Baker and La Russa talked at the batting cage
before the final game of the series then shook hands.
They each had their opinions,
but they understood they were each going
to protect their players
and their friendship would persist with that understanding.
Dusty sounded a little chagrined,
explaining that he had a "thug side."
He was a Gemini whose evil twin came out from time to time.
But even after a cool-down and a handshake,
these guys sounded feisty.
"If you're going to bark, be ready to bite."
No one intimidated Dusty except his dad and Bob Gibson
and this is one bully in school.
La Russa fixated on words and customs,
the social meta-game of baseball.
The comments about his comments about Kerry Wood.
While Baker accused La Russa
of making and acting upon threats,
La Russa spoke broadly about his responsibility to his club,
about words versus actions.
He pointed out a time Dusty's Cubs
appeared to intentionally throw at a Pirates batter,
but said they were just trying to throw inside.
This was basically a public battle over that unwritten rule
wherein rivals send each other messages
by hurling baseballs at each other.
La Russa seemed comfortable dancing that old school dance
and offended that Baker breached etiquette
by calling it out.
You're not supposed to use your words in baseball.
In retrospect, Baker says that La Russa and the Cardinals
just felt threatened by Chicago
overtaking them in the division,
which is exactly what happened.
Chicago took four of five games in that series
and went on to win the '03 NL Central crown.
Baker in the midst of another September blowup
between the teams pitchers,
said St. Louis had a whole decade of competition coming.
Then Chicago suffered one of the most notorious collapses
in the history of baseball.
The '03 NLCS against the Marlins
is remembered for the Steve Bartman interference incident
but the Cubs, Dusty included,
dug their own grave in that seven in game defeat.
And thereafter, St. Louis went right back
to dominating the division.
They won the NL Pennant in '04,
then won La Russa his second World Series ring in '06.
Dusty's Cubs didn't make another postseason.
They spent those three years
battling the Cardinals and falling short.
Baker sounded kind of wistful
as his relationship with a former confidant
dissolved into the losing end of a historic rivalry.
La Russa said the nature of competition
changed the relationship.
For one to win, the other had to lose.
Tony said they were still friends,
but I don't think anyone believed him.
La Russa wished Baker would go away.
Go manage in another division
or over in the American League, ideally.
Well, about that.
While La Russa's Cardinals chased the 2006 title,
the Cubs declined to renew Baker's contract.
Chicago replace Baker with Lou Piniella,
another friend of Tony La Russa's.
La Russa said that was different.
His relationship with Piniella went back to childhood.
They would stay friends.
Interesting distinction there but hey,
Dusty was out of Tony's division now.
They could finally repair tha-- Ah! S***.
In 2008, Baker took over as manager for the Cincinnati Reds
yet another NL Central club
hoping to knock La Russa's Cardinals off their perch.
For the next couple of seasons, Cincinnati underperformed
and St. Louis was in a bit of a rut as well,
relatively speaking.
But in 2010, both the Reds and Cardinals got hot.
And once again, animus between rival players
drew two old friends into the beef arena.
A minor war of words between the two teams climaxed
When Cincinnati's Brandon Phillips
dropped the verbal equivalent of a nuclear bomb.
When the Cardinals visited Cincy on August 10th,
La Russa's team didn't even have to throw at Phillips.
The moment he stepped to the plate,
he got into it with Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina.
Benches cleared.
The two managers, the guys supposed to control their teams,
yet again took to the field
to instead get in each other's faces.
Once more, their beef kind of escalated a tense situation.
All this stuff happened afterward.
MLB felt the Baker and La Russa feud
stoked all that violence and suspended both managers.
Even after that we got public affirmations of friendship.
But the aftermath of that Red's Cardinals brawl
had a long tail.
In 2011, after St. Louis won another World Series,
La Russa opted to walk away on top of the game.
His marvelous Cardinals career came to an end.
But he had one final task.
One last beef job.
Okay, I regret saying beef job.
Winning the 2011 Pennant made La Russa eligible
to manage the 2012 National League All-Stars
even though he was retired.
La Russa accepted the gig and in naming his team
excluded two Cincinnati stars:
Brandon Phillips and Johnny Cueto,
who felt they were deserving.
Their manager, Baker, plainly accused La Russa
of punishing Phillips and Cueto
for their roles in that brawl two years prior.
La Russa was flabbergasted.
He felt betrayed.
Baker's accusations were personal,
a knife in the back that La Russa wouldn't forget.
Pretty dramatic stuff
for what's supposed to be a fun exhibition game.
La Russa's autobiography came out in 2013
and he still sounded upset.
In its epilogue,
La Russa again addressed Baker's accusations,
but didn't even refer to his old friend by name.
"The Reds manager fired off a cheap shot at me.
The ugliness, the personal nature of his attacks
destroyed the relationship."
So there you have it, I guess.
Through rivalries,
through brawls,
through shouting matches,
Tony La Russa and Dusty Baker
insisted they were still friends,
but this beef between old coworkers
has always revolved around
the ethics and customs of baseball.
The meta-game of words and gestures.
When Baker accused La Russa
of basing a decision on a grudge, that was too far.
Managing rival teams really taints a relationship,
which only makes it more fascinating that in the next decade
after Baker took over an American league club,
La Russa, the man who once wished publicly
that Baker would go manage in another league,
also took an AL job.
Baseball would once again put them in opposite dugouts
through at least the early 2020s.
I guess if you can't be friends,
you might as well stay rivals.
Long live beef.