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    One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season
    Unavailable
    One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season
    Unavailable
    One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season
    Ebook573 pages10 hours

    One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season

    By Tony La Russa

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    One Last Strike by legendary baseball manager Tony La Russa is a thrilling sports comeback story. La Russa, the winner of four Manager of the Year awards—who led his teams to six Pennant wins and three World Series crowns—chronicles one of the most exciting end-of-season runs in baseball history, revealing with fascinating behind-the-scenes details how, under his expert management, the St. Louis Cardinals emerged victorious in the 2011 World Series despite countless injuries, mishaps, and roadblocks along the way. Talking candidly about the remarkable season—and his All-Star players like Albert Pujols and David Freese—the recently retired La Russa celebrates his fifty years in baseball, his team’s amazing recovery from 10 ½ games back, and one final, unforgettable championship in a book that no true baseball fan will want to miss.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 25, 2012
    ISBN9780062207531
    Unavailable
    One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season
    Author

    Tony La Russa

    Tony La Russa managed the St. Louis Cardinals from 1996 to 2011, as well as the Oakland A's and the Chicago White Sox. He has three World Series wins, six league championships, and five Manager of the Year awards, and is ranked third in all-time major league wins. He and his wife, Elaine, founded the Tony La Russa Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek, California. They have two daughters, Bianca and Devon. Rick Hummel has covered baseball for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for forty years. A former president of the Baseball Writers Association of America, he has received numerous awards for his writing and has been honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

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    Reviews for One Last Strike

    3.5/5

    22 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This epic account of his 2011 swan song has such exhausting detail and depth, that it could use an audio book version. A thinking man's micro manager as well as a master motivator, this guy deserves a PHD in baseball. Tony is a class act who once answered a letter I sent him. Not only is this book a clutch hit, but his old PC and console baseball video game series was the best ever.
    • 4/5
      I know some Tony La Russa detractors, and I have to admit that there were times during his tenure as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals that his micro-managing and convoluted strategies would drive me crazy. But it's hard to argue with results, and even before the miraculous 2011 season, I felt that there was nobody in baseball who devoted more energy and intelligence to the game. And then came 2011. Devastating injuries, including a season-ending one for Adam Wainwright in spring training. Struggles in the bullpen. Long losing streaks. Ten and a half games out in late August. After that point, the character of the team, their ability to take it and keep coming back, came to the forefront. It seemed there was never a time that the Cardinals did not have their backs to the wall, especially in game 6 of the World Series when they were twice down to their last strike. It was the single most exhilarating game I've ever seen. And I'm very thankful that it lit a spark in my younger son Jacob. He became a fan that night, and now he and I have had many pleasurable times watching and talking baseball together.Anyway, La Russa is responsible for that more than any single man. This book is a well-told tale of that season, and La Russa's reminiscences of previous players and seasons. A most enjoyable book for any baseball fan, and especially for a Cardinal fan.
    • 4/5
      As a converted Cardinal fan, the 2011 season was a roller coaster ride of a season, one that tested every fan's capacity for excitement. The subsequent post season became a microcosm of the season, albeit in a much more exciting form and a more compressed time scale. I had hoped that someone would write a book about the season, but I was delighted and a bit conflicted after hearing that Tony La Russa was working on such a book. excited because I knew we would get a look behind the curtain, conflicted because La Russa has always been somewhat aloof and closed up about what he did and his relationship with other people. This book has both surprised me by its openness at points and reinforced my initial reaction.La Russa has had a reputation for being extremely cerebral as a manager and somewhat cold hearted. He makes an incredibly detailed and emotional recount of the year that was 2011 for the Cardinals. He starts the story at the end of the 2010 season, recounting the disappointment of the season and the post season moves. he occasionally takes side trips into his past, as a player and as a coach to recall lessons learned and experiences gained. True to form, there weren't too many good old boy back slapping stories, although the narrative was not devoid of humor and comradry, The salient and very precise recounting of every critical decision he made throughout the season was a phenomenal bonus. True to form, La Russa was reasoned, detailed, and incredibly hard on himself for the miscalculations and mistakes. He proved to be extremely sentimental about former players and coaches and showed a side of himself that the fans don't often see. He wasn't completely magnanimous though, as he recounted various runinsa nd feuds that he had with others. His recounting of his run-in with Ozzie Smith during Ozzies last season was curt and unchanged from what he had said all along. His recounting of the controversy between him and Dusty Baker over the 2012 all star selection choices was also brusque and almost dismissive. he didn't even mention Baker by name.In the end, this book could and should be dissected by anyone looking to become a coach and/or manager, regardless of sport. It is a recounting of a manager going about his craft, "grinding" it out as La Russa puts it and it is a grand lesson in the coaching profession which happen to culminated in a world series championship season. It is also a very detailed recounting of a great Cardinal year and an emotional farewell to a great manager. 11 in '11.