Well, you've all heard it by now. Tony LaRussa was arrested on a driving under the influence charge late Wednesday night. Police "apparently" found him asleep, slumped over the wheel, on the side of the road with his foot on the brake and the car in drive. Who knows? Something is fishy with the story though, because according to the police LaRussa only blew a 0.093, which five years ago wasn't even illegal in the State of Missouri. I spoke with an educated, but anonymous source concerning blood alcohol levels, and he informed me that this is an unusual reaction for someone with a 0.093 blood alcohol level who has a built up an alcohol tolerance of some sort. You would have to assume that this was LaRussa being buzzed, not drunk. According to Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, it's not unusual for Tony to go out and have a bottle of wine over dinner after games. Miklasz said he spoke with LaRussa immediately before LaRussa entered the restaurant for dinner and Tony had mentioned that dinner and wine was on the evening's agenda. But we all know how one bottle of wine can lead to 19 shots of Early Times Whiskey. Ok, so that's overboard. There obviously wasn't that much alcohol in LaRussa's system, so either something else something else was going on that we don't know about, or LaRussa was extremely tired. Who knows?
My theory is that he was trying to forget the fact that he just announced Braden Looper was going to be his fifth starter. This is probably enough to drive most World Series defending managers towards a long night on the town. But being more realistic, the obvious answer is some sort of drugs mixed up in Tony's system, whether legal or not. It could have been as simple as prescription cold medicine playing an effect on Tony. Don't put much stock in this, it's not like LaRussa was anybodies boyhood hero and his image just came crashing down. No little kids want to be him. This isn't like Michael Jordan getting arrested for drinking and driving and crushing the hearts of little children all over the world who wanted to be him but now think he's a big fat loser. LaRussa made a mistake, we all do, but in reality he went out to dinner with other grown men and had a bottle of wine, then happened to be pulled over by a Mr. Police Man. I'm not condoning it, by any means. But I also don't think it's going to have any lasting effect on the organization, the team, or LaRussa's image as a badass manager.
But...the whole falling asleep on the side of the road thing is still a mystery. One thing most reports are leaving out, but something we can be pretty sure is true: Leonard Little and Jeff Smoker were both in the car with LaRussa at the time of the incident.
What do you think about this? Should LaRussa be punished? Do you hate him?
2 comments:
Obviously Tony wasn't to drunk. It was just the case of an adult making a poor decision and since he is a celebrity, than people make a big deal out of it. I gurantee you tonight someone will be pulled over and arrested for drunken driving and nobody will give a dang, or hate the person.
Is it safe to say that the cops were out tryin' to catch Tony LaRussa drivin' dirty? Sounds like they succeeded ... if you consider "under the influence" as having a sip of wine from church that morning.
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