Former A’s manager La Russa saddened and angered by team’s departure from Oakland originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Tony La Russa is still emotional about the Athletics’ departure from Oakland.
“My reaction right now is sadness and anger,” La Russa told NBC Sports California last week.
La Russa made the A’s on their last World Series championship in 1989the pinnacle of three consecutive appearances at the Fall Classic.
So La Russa, 80, saw baseball in Oakland at its best. And he saw the A’s best fans, loyal to the end through years of neglect from owner John Fisher.
“That’s part of the disappointment and anger, because (they’re) very, very loyal,” La Russa said. “Very passionate.”
He would know. La Russa is the second winningest manager in baseball all-time, with 2,884 regular season wins and three World Series titles with the A’s, Chicago Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals under his belt.
“I learned that you don’t say the most loyal, the most passionate because that’s disrespecting the fans (of all),” La Russa said. “But they were as loyal and passionate as anyone, especially in the last few years when you know they were going back and forth about whether the franchise was going to go away.
The A’s are expected to play in West Sacramento through at least the 2027 season before hoping to settle on a new ballpark in Las Vegas.
“The Coliseum was in pretty rough shape,” La Russa said of the fans. “They still cared.”
The A’s played at the Oakland Coliseum from 1968 to 2024, and several attempts to build a new ballpark in Oakland or elsewhere in the Bay Area failed.
“I think we should have found a way,” La Russa said. “If it wasn’t Oakland, it should have been somewhere in the Bay Area.”
Instead, it’s Viva Las Vegas for a franchise that has won four World Series during its 56 years in Oakland.
“Last time I was there, a couple of times, the White Sox played the A’s, and then I was there for the A’s Hall of Fame (2024), where they inducted Jose Canseco, Terry Steinbach, Miguel Tejada, (Bill King, Dick Williams and Eddie Joost),” La Russa said. “So it was very difficult. All the Hall of Famers were there, Rickey (Henderson) and (Dave Stewart) and all the guys, Carney (Lansford). And we were complaining about the history, the memories that we had there, and that was it.
Among La Russa’s best memories at the Colosseum?
The famous animal lover famously rescued a stray cat from the Coliseum grounds in 1990. When La Russa discovered that the Bay Area did not have many no-kill shelters, he and his wife Elaine founded the Tony La Russa Animal Rescue Foundation. that same year.
The organization still exists, under a different name, but La Russa has partnered with another animal rescue organization, which we’ll get to in a second.
La Russa still has fond memories of dog days at the park, and we’re not talking about August. At the Coliseum, dogs were allowed every Tuesday for “Bark in the Park.”
“I always know when that dog day is here,” La Russa said. “And I’ll make it a point to come out early when they’re going around the field, just to watch them and just enjoy. They’re wagging their tails. They’re with their owner. The owner is happy to have them. It’s just right a wonderful atmosphere.
La Russa last had success with the White Sox in 2022, and he always looked forward to those dog days because his pups were home.
“Most of the time when I’m away, we live in the Bay Area, so when I’m away doing my job, the players know I’m not getting my pet fixed, so they’ll come to the stadium with their dogs and give me a chance to enjoy it,” La Russa said. “So ‘Bark in the Park’ is a wonderful promotion, but it’s especially when you see how happy the owners and the dogs are. It reminds us how magical the combination of the two can be.
Speaking of a magical combination, La Russa just named Penfed Foundation, a military veteran empowerment organization that breeds service dogs for veterans, among other missions, as a beneficiary of its annual Leaders and Legends event .
Leaders and legendsto be held in Phoenix, Ari. November 21-24 will bring together some of the nation’s greatest athletes, thinkers, leaders and military heroes for a memorable weekend of leadership sessions and entertainment.
“I have a wonderful and powerful story for you. I have a veteran friend who returned from multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He received 23 different medications. He has a dog. He only has one medication left, a prescription medication. It shows you the healing power of animals on veterans and many others,” said Andrea McCarren, senior vice president of the Penfed Foundation. “We really need the support of everyone in the Bay Area. And I think it’s so exciting to hear that the La Russa family is continuing their great work and taking it to new heights.
Leaders and Legends speakers will include A-list luminaries like Reggie Jackson, Dennis Eckersley, Mark McGwire and Harold Baines.
“It was a wonderful franchise,” La Russa said. “It should never have happened. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did.
