Tony La Russa: Adjusting to journey ‘upstairs’ isn’t without challenges
Feb 15, 2015, 8:17 PM | Updated: 11:33 pm
Arizona Diamondbacks Chief Baseball Officer Tony La Russa has taken almost 50 years to walk up a couple flights of stairs.
He’ll be in the front office of a ball club for the first time when the D-backs begin their 2015 campaign, after 16 years as a player and 33 as a Hall of Fame-caliber manager.
It’s a big difference from where he’s been.
“The one thing I’m trying to learn is you’re a very lengthy step removed from the action,” La Russa told Arizona Sports 98.7 FM‘s Doug and Wolf during February’s Newsmakers Week.
La Russa, was everything but “hands-off” during his career. Highly competitive even outside the diamond, he once considered a career off the field as a courtroom lawyer.
“The one part of going to law school I was sure about, because of the competitive side, I probably would’ve been a courtroom type,” he said.
Between school and baseball, the latter always won the call, though. He said he would go to school for a couple years (at Florida State) with the knowledge that he ultimately had to get a degree and support his family, but then he’d drop out and head back to the field.
“When I was in law school I was still playing,” he said. “I would attend Florida State for two years, drop out, and I was still getting paid to play. For five years I did that.”
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