You might have thought that once Mark McGwire had faded off into the sunset, he would stay there. A non-Hall of Famer quietly living out his days in a beachfront shack somewhere, wearing sandals to the grocery store and learning to play the accordion. Instead, he's decided to follow the playbook of any smart scandal-ridden athlete looking to get back in the public's good graces. First, find a respected citizen to vouch for you, then take a job that seems beneath your (former) stature. Since Tony Dungy and a third-string quarterback position were both unavailable, his old pal Tony La Russa has agreed to hire him to be the new St. Louis hitting coach.

La Russa was thought to be on the verge of retirement, but has agreed to come back for one more big score, possibly because it gives him a chance to help resurrect his friend's baseball career. McGwire has been quietly working behind the scenes as a for-hire hitting instructor, but who else would be willing to take a chance on him as a fully-formed, on-the-bench coach? (They're a package deal. Neither one could [or would] come back without the other.) Once fans get used to seeing him in that Cardinal uniform again, they'll remember how much they loved watching him smash those home runs and that nostalgic joy will make them realize they don't really care how he did it.

Then, after a few well-placed quotes from Albert Pujols about what a great influence the old slugger has been, he'll hold a press conference, say whatever needs to be said about his steroid use and we'll all move on. As Buster Olney points out, that strategy has worked wonders for Alex Rodriguez (the World Series visit helped) and if Mark McGwire's advice makes the Cardinals even slightly better, then he easily becomes that "good guy" again. (It's already working.) Three or four more years go by and bingo—75% of the vote.

It's just crazy enough to work.

McGwire's return to Cardinals as hitting coach makes sense [Post-Dispatch]
Stunner: McGwire back in baseball? [SF Chronicle]
McGwire's back, and there's nothing wrong with it [Fox Sports]
Cardinals schedule midday news conference [AP]
Keep the head down and inject 2 cc of nandrolone: Mark McGwire to be hitting coach at St. Louis [Steroid Nation]

I can't wait. And neither can Charles P. Pierce, who remains America's best sportswriter no matter what Rick Reilly writes over and over on his Trapper Keeper:

I first became aware of this particular blight when he worked in Oakland a decade or two ago, back in the days before Beane turned the A's into a mirror with which to show himself his true genius. First thing you heard was that La Russa had a law degree. This was meant to portray him as something of a baseball intellectual, which heretofore had been defined as someone who spit tobacco on his own shoes and not yours. I was fascinated by the fascination with this; I mean, the world is full of lawyers. (So, for that matter, are various low-security prisons, but that's another story.) I wondered how many of his acolytes would hire Tony La Russa and his law degree to defend them on a capital-murder charge. Not many, I reckoned.

Then there was the ballet school T-shirt. La Russa used to wear this all the time in his post-game interviews. This was meant to portray him as something of a baseball aesthete, which heretofore had been defined as someone who put something larger than a $1 bill into the stripper's G-string. This particular bluff worked until the night when, while wearing the ballet-school T-shirt, La Russa bum-rushed an elderly reporter from his clubhouse. This is not something Diaghilev would have done - not even to people throwing apples at his head.

With La Russa's contract set to expire after the season, it's pretty much a given that teevee people will sing hosanna after hosanna to his steel-jawed genius. And if the Cardinals advance past the first round, we could be in for the most insufferable postseason since 2006. Let us pray it doesn't happen. Baseball has enough dilettantes hanging around the ballpark as is. The last thing we need is yet more undeserving praise for a guy who waves around his law degree and demands a Fields Medal because he occasionally bats the pitcher in the eight hole.

The Smartest Man in Baseball Is an Idiot [Esquire]

St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan sure thinks so! Smoltz had only walked three batters since coming to St. Louis in August, but walked five in just two innings last night. He complained during and after the game that the baseballs were too slick because they had not been rubbed down beforehand. (The home team's clubhouse attendants—in this case the Reds'—are responsible for that traditional duty.) However, the Reds starting pitcher went 8.1 IP and only walked one. So what's Duncan's theory on Arroyo's success? Pine tar.

I'm sure he had pine tar on his cap. He didn't have any problem getting a grip. Balls like that can generate a lot more movement than a slick ball that hasn't been rubbed up ... I've been around for 40-plus years now and I've never seen a major-league baseball game played with balls like that.

Duncan added that he saw Arroyo go to the his cap on nearly every pitch, and this AP photo (click to enlarge) seems to suggest that there was something under there that maybe shouldn't be. (Update: Arroyo's response—Yeah, I grab my (crotch) and do 8,000 other twitches. What you want me to do about it? That's how I pitch.") However, Duncan and manager Tony La Russa somehow think that pointing out that someone is breaking the rules is "gamesmanship" so they didn't say anything. (You're welcome, Kenny Rogers.) Also, the three Cardinals pitchers who came after Smoltz did just fine so maybe the bellyaching is just a cover for a lousy performance.

Yet the question still remains—were balls being rubbed, properly or improperly? And will we ever be mature enough to not make jokes likes this?

Balls.

Duncan says pine tar gave Reds the upper hand [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
Pine tar incident [Cincy Enquirer]

La Russa and Twitter settled their lawsuit, which the Cardinals manager brought against the microblogging service for macro damages, including emotional distress worth more than 140 characters. But, you see, the lawsuit wasn't about naysayers (or parodists) being critical of La Russa, or about the four — four! — followers who noticed, or the fact that experts doubted the suit's merit. This was about the law.

"There is a law against improperly using a person's name without authorization and it wasn't authorized," La Russa said. "You can't sue everybody for criticizing you, but it seemed like that was the perception. It was improper use of the name, but it's been settled."

It's going to cost Twitter a probable donation to La Russa's ARF and his legal fees — which, of course, the skipper would not have accrued had he not sued in the first place.

UPDATE: Twitter, through its blog, is denying that the suit has been settled:

Reports this week that Twitter has settled a law suit and officially agreed to pay legal fees for an impersonation complaint that was taken care of by our support staff in accordance with our Terms are erroneous. Twitter has not settled, nor do we plan to settle or pay.

With due respect to the man and his notable work, Mr. La Russa's lawsuit was an unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous. Twitter's Terms of Service are fair and we believe will be upheld in a court that will ultimately dismiss Mr. La Russa's lawsuit.

What's more, the Twitterati folk seem to be using this particular case to launch a new feature: verified accounts. From now on, certain people will have super-duper-special seals to denote their authenticity. That select group of celebrities includes "public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes and other well known individuals at risk of impersonation," like this guy.

La Russa, Twitter settle lawsuit [AP]
Experts say La Russa's Twitter suit was long shot [AP]
Tony La Russa Is Not Laughing At Your Satire [Deadspin]
Not Playing Ball [Twitter Blog]

La Russa filed the suit last month in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco. He's seeking unspecified damages. Exhibit A includes the following posts (the Twitter page has been taken down):

• "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher... I'd call that an I-55 series."
• "Fortunately, Ian Snell sucks now... when Molina and Duncan Jr. go deep off of you it's time to look yourself in the mirror, have an ice-..."
• "drinking a cold Zima and wishing fucking Hancock was alive, I bet he could've gotten Jack Wilson out."

Something like this was bound to happen eventually, I guess. But these guys picked probably the worst guy in sports to mess with. Need we remind you that La Russa, the Socrates of the lineup card, is also the proud owner of a law degree?

Tony La Russa sues Twitter over alleged fake page [AP]
Anthony La Russa vs. Twitter, Inc (PDF) [Citizen Media Law Project]

The cleverly titled "What happened to our teams?" lets Duff engage his inner W.C. Heinz and spout off about the Seahawks (Jim Mora is a rocker! Kinda cool!); the Washington Huskies (None of the top high-school kids want to come here); the Sonics (Gone forever! Bullshit!).When he talks about the Mariners, though, is when it really gets interesting. He shares this amusing anecdote about a little run-in he had at one of his concerts:

I ran into Tony LaRussa at one of my gigs last spring and he was dismayed that the Mariners had passed him over a few months earlier.

“They passed you over?!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, it’s too bad, I would have loved the gig.”

Tony LaRussa had just won a World Series with the Cardinals! We need some good management, and I hope they do the right thing this off-season. If not, I suggest we all boycott. Shit, Sweet Lou left because management wasn’t allowing him to do his thing as he saw fit.

So, what's more alarming out of this conversation:That Tony LaRussa really wanted the Mariners job, that LaRussa uses the word "gig", or that he's at a Velvet Revolver concert striking up a conversation with Duff? Nothing is processing.

What Happened To Our Teams? [Seattle Weekly]

We're trying to imagine what the equivalent Spiezio jersey would be. A needle, perhaps?

Fan of the Week :: La Russa .093 Jersey [Joe Sports Fan]
Even Geniuses Sometimes Forget To Put The Car In Park [Deadspin]

By our count, the following folks have had some sort of connection with this whole steroid business:

• Rick Ankiel.
• Ryan Franklin.
• Troy Glaus.
• Juan Gonzalez.
• Ron Villone.

And Tony La Russa was interested in Barry Bonds, remember. (And boy, what could have possibly gone wrong there?)

We've been asked if we have some problem with this, if we are some sort of Tony La Russa apologist, the same way he has been an apologist for all the steroid abusers he's managed over the years. We're not sure why this is; LaRussa is one of the most fun people to make fun of in sports. (He does it to himself.)

Our issue is not with LaRussa, who's just a guy who wants to win some games after all. (Is it a manager's job to kick guys off his team for doing steroids? That would seem like the exact opposite of what a manager should do.) It's our general exhaustion with the whole steroid business, which, we suspect, most of you share. Juan Gonzalez did steroids, Paul LoDuca did, Shawne Merriman did ... at the risk of sounding "cynical," how does this affect the price of butter in Egypt again?

The joy of being a sports fan, rather than someone involved in the echo chamber of sports as profession (ahem), is that sports doesn't have to be this big morality play for us. We can all hope that our favorite players are not on steroids, and we can boo those on other teams who are (or at least rumored to be), but we don't have to carry this stupid weight on our shoulders, as if our games have been ruined. This is not our life, this sports; this is something we enjoy to get away from our worldly woes. We didn't grow up worshiping Mickey Mantle; we grew up worshiping Michael Jordan, who probably got kicked out of the NBA for a year for gambling. We have no illusions about our heroes. They are flawed people who probably took some drugs to get ahead because it's really stressful and difficult to be a successful athlete and sometimes you feel like you need some help to stay in the game. It doesn't excuse it. It just makes the whole issue so tangled and so overwhelming that eventually you have to just say, "Aw, fuck it ... just play ball already." Boo, cheer, hiss, whatever: Just win, team, would ya?

This is the healthiest attitude we can imagine a sports fan mustering, and it's why when we boo Tony LaRussa this year, it'll be for starting Aaron Miles, and not for starting Juan Gonzalez. Though we suspect we'll probably end up doing that too.

Cards Reject Portrayal As Lax On Drug Use [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

(Throughout the upcoming baseball season, we'll be doing occasional Cardinals-centric posts that the millions of humans unfortunate enough not to be Cardinals fans won't care about. We'll label them accordingly and try to keep them out of your way. Consider this the first one.)

Here's a portion of LaRussa's conversation with Brian Burwell of the St. Louis Post Dispatch on Monday. Question: Did McGwire take steroids?

"Well, that's what you believe and you're probably right according to testimony, but that's not what I believe," La Russa said. "I watched Mark McGwire work."

I interrupted him.

"Wait a minute, Tony. You still don't believe McGwire used performance-enhancing drugs?"

"Absolutely not."

"Come on."

"Absolutely not," he said. "If you see Mark today, he still looks like he did then."

"No, he doesn't," I said.

"Yes, he does," La Russa said.

"No, he doesn't," I repeated.

La Russa tossed his hands in the air and looked at me in frustration. "Are you asking for my opinion or yours?" he said.

"I'm asking your opinion," I said. "But we're having a conversation, and I'm disagreeing with you."

And now here's LaRussa, on his reputation of harboring steroid users:

One way I was taught to survive is my No. 1 accountability factor is myself. This is my 30th year doing this at the major league level. There isn't anybody — the commissioner, our owner, the fans, you — there isn't any person, man or woman, who can make me any more accountable than I am now right now because of myself. And I know there isn't anything we've done in all those years that was — with one small exception where we stole signs, a little hiccup — there isn't anything else that has happened on our ballclubs in Oakland or St. Louis that there's a hint of illegality. There isn't anything that we didn't actively and proactively attempt to do it right."

Now to new business: The Great Scott Spiezio Experiment is over. The Cardinals on Wednesday released the infielder after learning that and arrest warrant had been issued on him by the Irvine Police Department on six charges stemming from a crash in late December.

The warrant alleges driving under the influence, driving under the influence with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or more, hit and run, aggravated assault, assault and battery.

Yikes. However, Paul S. Meyer, Spiezio's lawyer in Irvine, released a brief statement saying, "We anticipate a successful resolution to this misdemeanor matter." OK, then.

This has been your St. Louis Cardinals roundup for today. By tomorrow I expect to be fired, or possibly bludgeoned with a circus mallet. Goodbye.

LaRussa On McGwire, Others In The Mitchell Report [St. Louis Post Dispatch]
Cards Relesae Spiezio After Arrest Warrant Issued [St. Louis Post Dispatch[

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Bernie Miklasz:

DeWitt and La Russa have reached agreement ... UPDATED. NOT a 3-yr deal ... Still don't know the terms, could be a 1-yr with an option. Just dont know yet.These details will be determined later.

But it's 100 percent that he's managing the Cardinals in 2008. 1 pm news conference today at Busch Stadium.

This had been expected; despite rumors that he was interested in the Yankees job, the Cardinals have made some personnel moves so far (Joel Piniero, for example) that have LaRussa's thumbprints all over them, even though they still don't have a general manager. So nighttime sunglasses should remain well in demand throughout the greater St. Louis area for at least the next 12 months.

It' Official: LaRussa Is Back [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Cardinals chairman Bill Dewitt informed Walt Jocketty, architect of the Cardinals for the last 11 years, that he was being let go a year before his contract was out; the Cardinals are expected to hold a press conference in about 20 minutes. No replacement has yet been named. Jocketty has been an odds with the Cardinals brass for two years now, since his scouting staff was replaced.

It is not known whether or not Tony LaRussa will follow Jocketty out the door ... but they've worked together for 11 years now. You can probably guess where this is going. Is Tony LaRussa gonna be managing your team next year?

Jocketty Out As Cardinals' General Manager [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Listen, we appreciate all La Russa has done for St. Louis, turning the franchise around after the dreary Joe Torre years, and, you know, winning that World Series last year. But now the rest of you understand the pain of being managed by a guy who just has to Make A Decision, even if it's in the face of logic and, more important (we are talking about the All-Star Game, after all), fun. Outstanding comeback. National League with every opportunity to finally win one of these. One of the best hitters in baseball — his own player! — ready and waiting to pinch hit. And La Russa has to pull one of his "I'm the manager and you cannot comprehend my wisdom" moves. He's been doing this crap for a decade in St. Louis, often in the postseason when the Birds could afford it the least. (One of the reasons St. Louis had its historic October run was because a depleted roster had tied La Russa's hands; he had no choice but not to tinker.)

Yes, Tony, we understand, the game could have gone into extra innings, and it's possible the National League would have run out of players. But Christ, man, you've got Albert Pujols with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth of a one run game! What do you want, anyway? As tends to be the case with La Russa anymore, he's so busy thinking about how he's three steps ahead of everyone else that he walks smack dab into a pole.

We love the guy, and we'll always appreciate him. But it's probably about that time, eh, Tony?

Public Enemy Number One [Contra Gooblar]

We understand that driving awareness probably isn't part of the entrance requirements, but Tony's got some tough competition in Weird Al Yankovic, Kevin Nealon and Jonathan Safran Foer.

The people at PETA tell us he's actually doing quite well in the voting. Of course he is. The man's a winner.

Sexiest Vegetarian [PETA]
Even Geniuses Sometimes Forget To Put The Car In Park [Deadspin]

Texas Tech coach Bob Knight and "Arliss" — sorry: "Arli$$" — star Robert Wuhl were guests of Cards manager Tony La Russa during last night's brutal, nasty, hideously played 14-inning Cardinals-Royals game. (The Cardinals won, but it was not something they should be proud of.)

We highly doubt Knight and Wuhl made it through all 14 innings; Knight surely napped out by the sixth out. We love the idea of these three guys hanging out after the game, though; we're sure Wuhl had to buy all the drinks, and we're sure La Russa didn't drive.

Responding officer John O'Keefe, a rookie, parks behind a sleeping La Russa, then gets scolded by a colleague, who tells him in no @%#$@&^@ uncertain terms to park in front of the manager's vehicle to prevent an escape. A group of laughing cops discuss how to "scare" the person snoring inside by pushing their faces against the windows and banging loudly. Several officers scram when they find out the motorist is La Russa. And two lawmen prepare a dazed-and-confused La Russa for jail by teaching him gang signs.

You know, you thought this couldn't be any more embarrassing for LaRussa, and then there's a bunch of "Reno 911" idiots goofing around in front of his car window. (We wonder if they paid tribute to La Russa by subbing in four different cops in a half inning.) When this video comes out, it's going to be a pleasant day.

Tony LaRussa DUI Tape Should Be Fun [Lt. Winslow]
Even Geniuses Sometimes Forget To Put The Car In Park [Deadspin]