Cardinals manager Tony La Russa only announced his retirement Monday morning, but he’s already proving to be a handful for some of his new daily haunts. Employees at St. Louis-area restaurants, libraries and shopping centers are reportedly sick of the skipper and how he’s spending his new-found free time.
“I’m a huge Cards fan, so when Tony walked in this morning I was thrilled to see him,” said Casey Spencer, who manages a suburban St. Louis McDonald’s. “But he wore out his welcome almost immediately.”
Spencer said La Russa changed his order no fewer than five times, blaming the cashier for any misunderstandings. La Russa then paid his $5.37 tab in all pennies just to be difficult.
“Who carries around more than 500 pennies?” asked Spencer. “Tony La Russa. That’s who.”
After taking nearly two hours to finish his breakfast, La Russa headed to a nearby public library where he browsed periodicals the rest of the morning. There, too, he quickly angered staff.
“We have old folks who spend countless hours reading our magazines. That’s fine,” said Library Manager Jessie Calfee. “But it’s the ones who start ripping out articles that get on our nerves and I counted at least 15 times Mr. La Russa did that.”
Calfee reported that La Russa first started clipping articles from sports magazines mentioning his Cardinals’ run to the World Series, but soon was cutting out everything from recipes to Marmaduke comics.
“Eventually we had to kick him out,” said Calfee. “When we walked him to the parking lot we saw his turn signal was still on and that he had taken up three handicapped spots with his big white Cadillac.”
La Russa then drove to a nearby pharmacy where he badgered staff to refill his arthritis medication even though he didn’t have a valid prescription from his doctor. Pressed to produce one, La Russa reportedly threw a fit about how inconvenienced he was.
“He just kept going on and on about how the doctor’s office was way on the other side of town and he wouldn’t be able to get there until this afternoon,” said pharmacist Audrey Bishop. “He said that if I made him miss Jeopardy at 4 p.m. today he’d find a way to make my life miserable so I figured I might as well load him up on a few months’ worth of meds so we won’t have to see his cranky ass around here again for a while.”
