The St. Louis Cardinals won Game 7 of the World Series on Friday to secure the franchise’s 11th title (11 in ’11 is not ironic, despite what Shane Victorino thinks) and they had a whopping 48 hours or so to enjoy it before the entire world crumbled around them. Yesterday morning, Tony LaRussa announced his retirement after 33 years of managing and three World Series wins (16 and 2 with the Cardinals, respectively). Instead of celebrating an incredibly improbable championship run, Cardinals players and fans now wonder, “Who will be the next manager and will it affect whether or not Albert Pujols stays?”

Only one man – St. Louis GM John Mozeliak – knows the answer to that first question, and only one man – Albert Pujols – knows the answer to the second question. Granted, his agent, wife and kids probably know, but he’s the only man who matters for right now. That doesn’t mean, though, that every sports writer, blogger and Internet commenter on Earth won’t make predictions, some of them accurate and most of them way off base. First up, former Cardinal and the grittiest shortstop ever, David Eckstein.

“Albert would stay if (Jose) Oquendo got the job.”

“My initial reaction (after learning of La Russa’s retirement) was, ‘It needs to be Jose Oquendo,’” Eckstein said. “When you played for Tony, you didn’t want to disappoint him. When I was playing infield for Jose, I didn’t want to disappoint him. I know how much he has put into this. When you can get a player to play outside of himself, for someone else, that’s when you get the best out of a player.”

(Via Fox Sports)

LaRussa has long lobbied for Oquendo to get his shot at managing a big league ballclub, and he certainly has a nice foundation and situation in St. Louis. He makes sense as a replacement, as the fans and players love him. But that really doesn’t mean much of anything.

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On Friday, the St. Louis Cardinals finished one of the most improbable World Series champion runs in Major League Baseball history as they defeated the Texas Rangers 6-2 in Game 7 in front of a record crowd at Busch Stadium. And less than 24 hours after the team’s victory parade, manager Tony LaRussa has announced that he will retire.

“Tony leaves behind a legacy of success that will always be rememered as one of the most successful eras in Cardinals history,” chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said at the announcement. “I knew this day would come. I just hoped that it wouldn’t.”

(Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

A friend emailed me this morning to ask if I knew what the Cardinals’ press conference was going to be about, and I, like most, assumed it was to announce that the team had picked up Yadier Molina’s option, even though that would be silly to announce when it’s plain as day. This makes a lot more sense, despite the fact that I’m in total “Aw, schucks” mode right now.

LaRussa was the definition of polarizing – Cardinals fans loved him and opposing fans hated him. But Cardinals fans also loved to hate him, and I think he loved making everyone want to rip their hair out in frustration. He retires with the third most wins as a manager in MLB history, and if he had stayed another season he would have undoubtedly passed John McGraw for second. Instead, he’ll settle for his three World Series rings and knowing that he gets the last laugh.

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John Lackey has decided to follow up divorcing his wife for having a double mastectomy with an unexpected act of chairty; he’ll be improving Boston Red Sox rotation by having Tommy John surgery and sitting at home for the entirety of 2012.

From Joe McDonald at ESPN Boston:

Lackey recently received an MRI and was examined by Dr. Lewis Yocum in Los Angeles, and it was decided the pitcher would undergo the procedure. A date for the surgery has not been set.

“John Lackey pitched through circumstances this year that I don’t think any of us can fully understand, and he got beat up for it a little bit,” Cherington said. “This guy was dealing with stuff both on the field and off the field that were very difficult, and he showed tremendous toughness pitching through that.”

It’s true. Lackey worked through a year of his tough $82.5 million contract to post a scrappy 6.84 ERA with a gutsy 6-8 record. Fun fact: he’s the third Sox pitcher to have Tommy John surgery this year, following in the footsteps of former sort-of-ace Daisuke Matsuzaka and lefty reliever/upscale housing complex Rich Hill.

The news of Lackey’s departure comes as a blow to Yankees fans, but hopefully he’ll return strong in 2013 with his 35% fastball intact.

Reality TV’s knockout combo of talking heads and inanimate 38-year old women has made “The Real Housewives Of ______” an easy joke, but when it’s done right, it can be really, really right. Case in point:”The Real Houseweives Of South Boston”, by way of Buzzfeed.

Somehow it manages to be hilarious, exactly like a real Real Housewives episode (complete with inexplicable dinner party) and a perfect encapsulation of every character I’ve ever seen from a movie set in Boston. Seriously, if one of these women had a gun this could pass for five minutes of The Town. If they aired the show as is on ESPN in Primetime I wouldn’t even know it was a joke.

Moments to look out for: Paul Pierce Jr. (and the pitch-perfect dichotomy of prejudiced white folks who love black people), Boston fans only liking home runs (didn’t need a parody video to tell me that) and the phrase “I f**k athletes. These are my trophies”.

[backwards hat tip to Mr. Matt Ufford]

Things are just an absolute disaster for the Boston Red Sox right now. First, they managed to produce one of the biggest regular season collapses in Major League Baseball history. Then, they made manager Terry Francona the scapegoat and booted him despite the fact that he led them to two World Series victories after an eternity of disappointment and dismay. Yesterday, General Manager Theo Epstein signed a 5-year contract to be the GM (and more!) of the Chicago Cubs. And now the Sox ownership and anonymous players are kicking Francona while he’s down by labeling him a drug abuser and emotional sissy boy. It’s quite the fahkin’ soap ahperah!

So can it get any worse? Hypothetically, yes. You see, David Ortiz spoke with ESPN’s Colleen Dominguez the other day and he admitted that he would play for the… *GASP* NEW YORK YANKEES!

“There’s too much drama, man,” Ortiz told Dominguez* in reference to the Red Sox. “There’s too much drama. I have been thinking about a lot of things. I don’t know if I want to be a part of this drama for next year.”

But would Ortiz really consider defecting to the other side of baseball’s biggest rivalry?

“That’s something I gotta think about,” Ortiz said. “I’ve been here on the Red Sox a long time, and I’ve seen how everything goes down between these two ballclubs.”

For instance, he’s seen how Johnny Damon was treated when he went from being an “idiot” to being the enemy. But that’s neither here nor there, because Ortiz is simply a free agent DH. He had a phenomenal contract year with 29 home runs and 98 RBI. But he’s also old and large and those things don’t bode well for a free agent. So let’s look at this for what it really is – a non-story created by a question that can’t actually be answered.

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Well, it’s official. After two months of speculation and rumors that were amplified by one of the greatest regular season chokes in Major League Baseball history, Boston Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein has been offered and accepted a job with the Chicago Cubs. According to ESPN, the two sides have come to terms on a 5-year deal worth $20 million for Epstein to work for the Cubs in a greater capacity than GM. And thus the city of Chicago just had the world’s largest collective orgasm.

Epstein had a year left on his contract with Boston, which meant that some sort of compensation would have to be provided by the Cubs. Twenty bucks says they first offered up Carlos Zambrano.

According to sources, Major League Baseball expressed great concern over the compensation package because they do not want this deal to affect how other teams compete in the market for front-office personnel.

A source with knowledge of the talks told ESPN’s Karl Ravech Tuesday that the compensation would involve prospects and/or cash, but no major league players would be part of the deal, following traditional precedent.

Of course there has also been a great deal of chatter about whether or not newly-unemployed Terry Francona would be Epstein’s choice as manager in Chicago. That must be super awkward for current manager Mike Quade, seeing as he’s still employed. But as a St. Louis Cardinals fan, I am often regarded as more intelligent and effectively managerial than most baseball fans so I thought I’d offer up a little advice for Epstein on how to fix the Cubbies.

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