La Russa, Cox, Torre: An improbable Hall of Fame trio

During its 75-year history, the Baseball Hall of Fame has never enshrined three living managers at once. Until now.

Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre rank third, fourth and fifth on the all-time wins list and will be recognized for their work July 27.

"I was on the (Expansion Era) Committee down in Florida when we voted on those guys," says Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro, who played for Cox and Torre with the Atlanta Braves. "Every time Bobby's name came up, we said, 'Let's go to the next guy.' It was the same thing with Torre's name and LaRussa's. There wasn't any debate about it."

The Hall of Fame has only had one induction class that included three managers. That happened in 1996, when Earl Weaver was joined by the late Ned Hanlon, a 19th-century manager, and Negro Leagues standout Rube Foster. Even including this year's electees, the Hall of Fame is home to only 23 managers.

"When you look at the entire history of baseball, the fact that so few managers have plaques shows you how exclusive that club is — and the standards to which managers are held," Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson says.

Even this year's trio could once have been considered improbable stories. La Russa and Cox were light-hitting infielders who found success as strategists. Torre, a career .297 batter primarily as a catcher, had mixed success in three stops as manager (894-1,003 for the New York Mets, Braves and St. Louis Cardinals) before striking gold with the New York Yankees. He finished as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers for three years.

"The greatest compliment I could ever give a manager is to say I would have loved playing for him," longtime Braves broadcaster and Hall of Fame pitcher Don Sutton says. "All three of the guys going in this year fit that category. They have three different personalities and three different ways of doing things."

The trio managed in the same era, beginning in the late 1970s and ending within a year of each other in 2010 and 2011.

"When I was in Chicago and Jim Leyland was one of my coaches, we faced Sparky (Anderson), Earl, Billy Martin and Gene Mauch," La Russa says of his days managing the Chicago White Sox. "All of a sudden this new guy goes to Toronto. And after a series or two, Jim and I looked at each other and said, 'This guy's pretty good.' It turned out to be Bobby Cox.

"When I got to the NL in 1996 for the first time, the Braves were the world champs and Bobby was on that incredible run of division championships. I had known him during the winter — he's a terrific guy, sociable and fun. We went to play him, and I was looking forward to saying hello. I was expecting a big greeting, hug and nice conversation. He waved, but that was it.

"He made it really clear that it was his team against your team. ... He and his team competed, and they were trying to beat you."

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La Russa's early struggles

La Russa gets credit for perfecting the use of specialized relievers and one-inning closers such as future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley with the Oakland Athletics. La Russa would win an American League West title with the White Sox in 1983 and four with the A's, three leading to pennants and one to a World Series title. He reached three more Series, winning two, with the Cardinals.

His style evolved from old school to high tech with advances in computer technology.

"The truth is that I am devoted to learning information," says La Russa, now chief baseball officer for the Arizona Diamondbacks. "There's a perception with how technical I am, but I've never carried a laptop. I got an iPad because it's easier to follow baseball games and do e-mail that way. I know there are a lot of sophisticated measures and analytics. There is value to quite a few of them, but in their place, which means before the game starts."

Hired at 34 to manage Bill Veeck's White Sox, La Russa survived early skepticism.

"I was a lousy player and had only managed a little bit," says La Russa, whose team went 27-27 in his first year (the latter half of the 1979 season) but finished 20 games below .500 a year later. "That could have been it, since Bill sold the club. I told (owner) Jerry Reinsdorf for years that if he had bought the club sooner, I believe he would have brought in a veteran manager.

"But it was January, so they hung in there. I was fighting for my life. Until 1983, when we won, my wife and I felt if things didn't work out in Chicago I probably wouldn't get another shot."

La Russa's mentors included Al Lopez, a Hall of Fame manager with the White Sox, and Chicago executive Roland Hemond, who hired him.

"I never imagined managing so long," says La Russa, whose career lasted 33 years. "The club was really struggling, so I got the last 54 games of (1979). Veeck was intrigued by my law degree, but Roland looked at it more from a baseball perspective. When I got that job, I learned not to be afraid to extend myself when I took a shot at something."

Two other Hall of Fame managers, Anderson and Dick Williams, also influenced La Russa.

He relied on Anderson as a sounding board. "He was a tremendous resource who was available at any time of day," says La Russa, 69. "He believed in sharing, so he gave me everything he knew. He talked, and I listened.

"I played for Dick with the 1971 A's and watched him use the bullpen quite often. He had Catfish Hunter, Blue Moon Odom and Vida Blue, but the last outs were often recorded by the bullpen. I saw that a starting pitcher who is tired is not as effective as the fresh specialty reliever.

"As you get deep into a game, you look at the hitters coming up and the bullpen you have. You make it as hard to score as you can in that inning. That's what (pitching coach) Dave Duncan and I did from 1983 to 2011."

When he started his 16-year St.Louis tenure in 1996, La Russa listened to broadcasters Jack Buck and Mike Shannon.

"In Chicago and the Bay Area, there are divided loyalties," La Russa says, "but St. Louis is all about the Cardinals. It's the only place the fans are with you, win or lose. Other places, it's win or die. Jack and Mike helped me understand the Cardinal culture."

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Torre and 'The Boss'

Torre's success in New York also required adjustments. He won just one division title (with Atlanta in 1982) while managing the Mets, Braves and Cardinals.

Recommended to George Steinbrenner by adviser Arthur Richman, Torre was greeted in New York by the Daily News tabloid headline "Clueless Joe." But the Brooklyn native, who broke in with the Milwaukee Braves and caught Warren Spahn's 300th win, calmed the caldron with his cool personality.

Over the next 12 years, he won six pennants and four World Series championships, cementing his niche in baseball history.

"I learned from every managing job," says Torre, 74. "There are certain things you don't care for but you have to do. You just have to learn how to do them.

"I don't like confrontation — probably from my childhood. It was never something I looked forward to. But I realize that as a manager, it's necessary. I always tried to find a positive way to get a message across to a player. So I had to hone my communication skills.

"I also learned a lot by having to address the media every day. When you do it in New York, it's a good test. As Frank Sinatra said, 'If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere.'"

According to Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss author Marty Appel, there are six reasons Torre compares favorably to Hall of Fame Yankees managers Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel:

• He had to finish ahead of 13 other teams, rather than seven, to win the pennant.
• To win the World Series, he had to win three rounds in the postseason, rather than one.
• He had to manage multinational, multicultural players with huge long-term contracts.
• He had to deal with a demanding owner who had little margin for error.
• He had to deal with sports talk radio and social media that second-guessed every move.
• He had to do live pregame and postgame news conferences.

"Huggins, McCarthy and Stengel never had to do those things," says Appel, a historian and onetime Yankees publicist. "They might have succeeded under those circumstances, but that was Joe Torre's reality.

"Joe also won four World Series in five years— almost what Stengel did from 1949-53 — and came within a Luis Gonzalez bloop of possibly winning five World Series in six years."

Torre has always been fast to credit those around him, such as shortstop Derek Jeter, who won the AL Rookie of the Year Award during the manager's first season with the Yankees.

A significant early influence was manager Red Schoendienst, for whom he played with the Cardinals from 1969 to 1974.

"The thing I learned early on was never to forget what it was like to be a player," Torre says. "(Schoendienst) was a good player, a Hall of Fame player. But as a manager, he never forgot what it was like to be a player. I tried to stay the same person as a manager that I was as a player."

Like La Russa and Cox, Torre also relied on his coaching staff.

"You have to surround yourself with good ballplayers and people who can watch your back," says Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, Torre's onetime teammate and baseball's home run king from 1974 to 2007. "Tony had the same pitching coach (Duncan) all the time; Bobby had Leo Mazzone. And Joe always had Don Zimmer. You need somebody who knows what the game is all about and has your best interests in mind.

"You also need someone to rely on when things are not going well. That person has to be honest — that's the most important thing — and not say 'yes' all the time. Managers appreciate coaches who are honest and even critical."

La Russa says there was another secret to his success: "In all the years I managed, I never had a day where a decision I made was not supported by the front office. They might have disagreed, but they gave me the opportunity and the authority."

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Cox counted on pitching

Cox, 73, says the route to the Cooperstown, N.Y., shrine starts with the front office.

"You've got to have good players to compete," says Cox, who also was Braves general manager from 1985 to 1990, "so you need good scouts and farm system people. It's up to the player development people to get those players ready."

Cox won five National League pennants, a World Series and a record 14 division titles in a row during his two stints with Atlanta.

He also won the 1985 AL East title managing the Toronto Blue Jays in the final season of a four-year stint.

"To become a Hall of Fame manager, you not only have to be there a long time but have to be able to adjust," says MLB Network analyst John Smoltz, who won 210 games for the Braves under Cox. "He did it with every type of team he was given. He won with teams that were in transition, with teams that didn't have speed, with teams that had no bullpen."

There was one constant. During the run of division titles, Atlanta was almost always near the top of the NL in ERA.

"When I started in baseball at age 18, the Dodgers had Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale and won pretty consistently," Cox says.

"I understood quickly that the team with the best pitching was going to come out the winner. So pitching was on my mind my whole life."

Cox not only holds the record for consecutive division titles but also for ejections.

"That's because we had good teams," he says. "The game could change with one pitch, one missed call or one swing. I never got thrown out much when we were on a losing streak, only when we were winning. The games were always tight. We were always in them."

Cox narrows his personal highlights to three seasons.

"My first taste of victory in Atlanta came in 1991," he says. "We had been bad for so many years. We were 91/2 games out at the All-Star break but started to play well. We caught the Dodgers, won the playoff and then went to Game 7 of the World Series against Minnesota.

"The 1993 season went down to the last day. We won 104 games; the Giants won 103, and they went home for the winter.

"Two years later we won the World Series when Tom Glavine and Mark Wohlers pitched a one-hitter in the last game."

Glavine and Greg Maddux, both 300-plus-game winners who pitched for Cox, also will be inducted this weekend.

"He respected his players and trusted his players more than anybody else I played for," says Maddux, who won 194 games for the Braves, 133 for the Chicago Cubs and 28 between the Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

Maddux arrived in Atlanta when the Braves were coming off their first two in the string of division titles. Glavine's career with Atlanta began with four seasons in which he lost a combined 41 games.

"He made everybody understand that whether you were the superstar or the 25th man coming out of spring training you would be an important piece of the puzzle," Glavine says of Cox.

The Braves averaged almost 100 losses in Glavine's first three seasons.

"To go from there to running off division titles and a World Series while I was there is something you could never have imagined in a million years," he says.

Perhaps it will take that long for another managerial class like this one to arrive in Cooperstown.