Bonus October Card Show Autograph

There's a mostly-monthly card show not far from me, with lots of signers that aren't household names. Then there's the big annual one every October, with nothing but Hall of Famers and huge stars. I don't collect football stuff, but this one had Emmitt Smith, Marcus Allen, and Tim Brown. I also don't really collect hockey, but Scotty Bowman, Curtis Joseph, and several other old time Blues were there. I do collect Bo Jackson, but his price was a bit too high for me, and I already have autographs from Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, and Red Schoendienst. I didn't make it there on Saturday for Bruce Sutter, but I did get this, which is now a cornerstone of my collection.

Tony La Russa 10

For some reason when I started watching baseball in 1992, I decided my second favorite team was the Oakland A's. As such, some of my favorite players were Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, and La Russa was one of my favorite managers. I'm sure I've relayed this story on the blog before, but in 1995, some time after the Cardinals fired Joe Torre as manager (which was June 16), I was at a game with my dad and overheard some guys behind us talking about how they had some inside information that Tony La Russa would be the Cardinals manager in 1996. If I heard such a rumor today of course I'd go straight to the internet and see if anyone else was talking about it, but at that time all I could really do was tell myself that it'd be nice, but I didn't see it happening. Of course, I was a kid, I had no reason to feel like I knew what I was talking about. Tony did become the next Cardinals manager that offseason, and managed 16 seasons, winning 2 World Series.

When I was at the show, I wore a shirt I bought from Uni Watch a few years ago.

Tony took my baseball from the organizer next to him I had handed it to, looked up at me and gave a cordial "how ya doin?", then looked back at the ball, paused, looked back to me, and said "Dodgers?!". I suppose I hadn't really thought through his history with them, losing the World Series to them with Oakland and then being their division rival the past 4 years with Arizona. I also don't really think of the shirt as a Dodgers shirt, even though that's obviously what it's styled after. He was just giving me a hard time and laughed it off, but I can now say I was razzed by Tony La Russa.