Dan O'Neill

ST. LOUIS - You can say what you want about the Cardinals being party-crashers, with their 83-win season. You can feel bad for the Detroit Tigers, who were the best story in baseball this summer and didn’t show it in the World Series. But you can’t deny Tony La Russa this moment.

La Russa has finished his 11^th season in St. Louis, a baseball-bonkers town that has been slow to embrace him. Those 11 years cover a lot of ground and it would be difficult to call this La Russa’s best season of managing. There have been others with their own unique dynamics.

Certainly, 2002 was a challenge. The ace of the Cardinals pitching staff, Darryl Kile, was found dead in his hotel room in the middle of the season. The news was a kick in the stomach to a team with pennant aspirations. Kile was one of the leaders for an impressionable group.

La Russa handled the situation with remarkable compassion and sensitivity. The tone he set helped a devastated team put baseball in perspective, deal with its sorrow and channel a competitive spirit. The Cardinals won 97 games and finished first in their division.

Some might say La Russa did his best job last season. He lost star third baseman Scott Rolen for most of the season. He had star right fielder Larry Walker for only brief stretches. But he was tactically outstanding, using his bench masterfully and making the most of a good bullpen. He pushed his team to 100 wins and another division title.

The year before, his team won 105 games, how could that not be among his best seasons?

But this Cardinals edition has its own niche, it’s own distinctive place. It started the season like gangbusters, finishing May with a 34-19 record, forging to the front of the National League Central. Then came problems, an injury to Albert Pujols, a meltdown of the starting pitching staff. The Cardinals played to the level of their competition, which was mostly mediocre.

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Their pitching stabilized down the stretch, but they played most of the final six weeks of the season without injured standouts like Jim Edmonds and David Eckstein. They staggered across the finish line, losing nine of their last 12 games, backing into the division title. In the process, they lost closer Jason Isringhausen to hip surgery.

Perhaps this is not the best season Tony La Russa has ever managed, perhaps it is his best postseason.

“The Cardinals did all the little things, and it’s the little things that win championships,” Detroit reliever Todd Jones said. “It should be a learning experience for us. We were good at the big things, but need to get better at the little things.”

Perhaps this isn’t La Russa’s best team, but his teams have been the best in the National League over the past several seasons. Nobody prepares better, nobody works harder, nobody pays more attention to “little things.” You might question La Russa’s moves, his philosophies. You can not question his baseball integrity.

“He’s always been the same,” Edmonds said. “I don’t think there has been a year where I have said, ‘Wow, Tony did a great job this year, or he didn’t do a great job this year.’

“You guys call it intensity, but I think it’s consistency. He just concentrates on what he does every day and he stays in the same mood every day. His most important thing is to help us get to a situation where we can win.”