You didn't think there was actually any merit in La Russa's reliever-overuse strategy, did you? No, these Cards, like other championship Cards, are made of the secret sauce. The grit. The phenomena. In 2006, it was David Eckstein. This year, it's homemade dong- and vagina-shaped cakes.
Tipster Michelle explains:
Hey Deadspin,
I just wanted to let you know that this weekend was my bachelorette party in Milwaukee and something really amazing happened that I think you would appreciate.
We stayed at a nice hotel downtown and as we were checking out, Tony La Russa was checking in. We wished him good luck. We are also fairly sure that he was going to stay in the same Suite that we had just checked out of. I overheard the hotel clerk say 'The guests just checked out of that suite, and we aren't sure of the condition of the room yet'.
They were right to right to question the state of the room. We left him two penis cakes, and one vagina cake. We like to think it is why the Cards won.
Now, granted, maybe La Russa never ate the cakes. Maybe he never even saw them, maybe he was in another suite entirely. But I wouldn't be so sure. There's something magical about these Cardinals, and that magic flows through the fingertips of their manager. Their erotic-cake-loving manager.