With Cliques Gone, Cardinals Clicked

The St. Louis Cardinals can talk freely talk about it now.

They can tell you how miserable they were much of this season playing in an atmosphere that was unpleasant for some, downright ugly for almost everyone.

“I won’t lie to you,” Cardinal closer Dennis Eckersley said. “It was awful. Nobody was comfortable with each other. To be honest, I was worried.

“I didn’t know what I got myself into.”

Said Cardinal starter Andy Benes: “It was hard to keep track of all the cliques and factions. It was almost like everybody had their own agenda. We were together on the field, but in the clubhouse, it was like we were just a bunch of strangers sitting in the same room.”

The Cardinals spent $44.7 million on salaries and bonuses, and on May 19 they were in last place, having lost 19 of their previous 25 games. They talked behind one another’s backs. They ridiculed new Manager Tony La Russa.

They were the biggest flop in baseball.

Who would have imagined then that the Cardinals would today be one victory from winning the National League pennant and playing the New York Yankees in a rematch of the 1964 World Series?

The Cardinals lead the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-seven National League championship series, 3-2, with Game 6 at 5 p.m. PDT tonight at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Rookie Alan Benes is expected to start for the Cardinals tonight against four-time Cy Young Award winner Greg Maddux. If they lose, left-hander Donovan Osborne will face 1991 Cy Young winner Tom Glavine of the Braves on Thursday.

La Russa would not announce that he had decided to use Benes ahead of Osborne tonight, but he told Benes he will probably be the man.

The decision to juggle the rotation at the most critical time of the season tells you all you need to know about Anthony La Russa Jr.

This 52-year-old with a law degree has won more games than any active manager. He has won six division titles with three clubs. He has won three American League pennants. He has won one World Series title. And three times he has been selected manager of the year.

Yet, with the National League pennant at stake, La Russa is conceding that he made a mistake. He is second-guessing himself for using a three-man pitching staff, saying now that he perhaps should have started Alan Benes in Game 4, keeping Andy Benes, Todd Stottlemyre and Osborne fresh.

Andy Benes and Stottlemyre lasted a total of six innings in their last two starts on three days’ rest, giving up 10 earned runs. If La Russa were to come back with Osborne today on short rest and got the same result, there is precious room for error in Game 7. If he pushes Osborne back one more day, he not only will have a big-game pitcher for the deciding game, but also will have Andy Benes ready in relief.

“We’ve always said you take your best shot,” La Russa said. “If your best shot changes, we’ll change.”

It is this willingness to change, to acknowledge fault and accept blame, that has the Cardinal players finally believing that the hype and praise surrounding La Russa is justified. Perhaps he is baseball’s most brilliant manager and worth the record $1.5 million he earns.

Their open support for La Russa is a far cry from a few months ago, when the Cardinal players considered him a pompous jerk leading them down the path of destruction.

They were not winning. They were playing sloppily. They didn’t like one another. And even worse, they hated coming to the ballpark.

“Some players weren’t happy with the way he went about his business,” Cardinal infielder Mike Gallego said. “It took a while for people to get used to La Russa’s way. There were rules, there was more batting practice, more fielding, just more work.

“There were a lot of guys who didn’t understand him, and really didn’t like him.”

Walt Jocketty, Cardinal general manager, suspected there were problems when the Cardinals held a team get-together at the end of spring training. There were more cliques than a United Nations meeting.

“Everywhere you looked, there were different factions all over the place,” Jocketty said. “I mean, no one even was mingling.”

Said Gallego, an Oakland import: “It wasn’t easy for anyone, especially with all of the guys coming over from Oakland. Tony made a point of not bringing up Oakland as much as he could. I know if I was a Cardinal all of my career, I wouldn’t want to hear all of our stories.”

The situation only worsened when the Cardinals opened the season with a 17-26 record. They were swept in three games by the Colorado Rockies and La Russa wondered if this team would ever jell. At that time, he determined he was at fault.

“My biggest mistake was that I pushed and pushed trying to get these guys ready to play, where I almost forgot how important it was just to have good atmosphere to play in,” La Russa said. “I put so much focus on winning that I wasn’t communicating with them before and after games. I was only talking to them during games, and that was my fault.

“There were some misunderstandings that I needed to get cleared up. You’ve got to have guys excited to come to the park. You’re not going to play well if no one wants to be there.

“We proved that.”

So La Russa started acting like one of the guys. He permitted music to be played before and after games. There were card games and lively banter. Soon, everyone started talking in the clubhouse, and before anyone knew it, they were hanging out together after games.

“Maybe it didn’t happen as quickly as people expected, and there were doubts about how far this team could go,” Gallego said. “Everybody knew we had the ability to win, but it took time for us to finally come together as one.

“There are a lot of personalities in here, but now there is only one ego.

“We still joke around and wonder where our white shoes went [from Oakland]. These things we wear now are pretty ugly. But, hey, now we can look ugly together and laugh about it.”

Said Jocketty: “When we clinched the division, and got everyone together at a party in Pittsburgh, that’s the first time I realized this club had come together. The factions were gone. I saw everyone mingling with one another. We finally became a team.”

This transformation, La Russa says, perhaps will make this his most memorable season. He won plenty of years when he was expected to win. He even won the American League West title in 1992 when no one expected it. But crashing the World Series party would be the ultimate rush.

“We’ve had some rough moments here,” La Russa said. “We did a lot to put all of this together. If we win [the pennant], this would be more special than anything we did in Oakland.

“We’re close, but we need that one game.”

“Oh, man, would that be nice.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Tony La Russa at a Glance

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Yrs Team W L Pct 1979-86 Chicago (AL) 522 510 .506 1986-95 Oakland 798 673 .528 1996 St. Louis 88 74 .543 Totals 1,408 1,257 .528

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* AL manager of year in 1983, ’88 and ’92.

* Won AL West title with Chicago in 1983 and with Oakland in 1988, ‘89, ’90 and ’92.

* Won AL pennant with Oakland in 1988, ’89 and ’90.

* Won World Series with Oakland in 1989.

Key Cardinal Acquisitions

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Player Prev. Team ’96 Stats Todd Stottlemyre, p Oakland 14-11, 3.87 ERA Andy Benes, p Seattle 18-10, 3.83 Dennis Eckersley, p Oakland 30saves,3.30 ERA Rick Honeycutt, p NY (AL) 4 saves, 2.85 Royce Clayton, ss S.F. .277, 33 SB Gary Gaetti, 3b K.C. 23 HR, 80 RBI Ron Gant, of Cin. 30 HR, 82 RBI

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Down, Not Out

Teams that have come back from 3-1 deficits to win postseason baseball series:

American League Championship Series

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Year Teams 1985 Kansas City defeated Toronto 1986 Boston defeated Angels

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World Series

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Year Teams 1903 Boston (AL) d. Pittsburgh (NL)* 1925 Pittsburgh (NL) d. Washington (AL) 1958 New York (AL) d. Milwaukee (NL) 1968 Detroit (AL) d. St. Louis (NL) 1979 Pittsburgh (NL) d. Baltimore (AL) 1985 Kansas City (AL) d. St. Louis (NL)

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National League Championship Series: Never

*--Nine-game series.