Batter up! Order up!

As Arthur Spooner would say, "Again, this is awkward."

If you follow baseball, you know the name of Tony La Russa. He was no great shakes as a player, but he has been a successful manager for the Oakland A's, Chicago White Sox, and St Louis Cardinals, and now he has been rehired to manage Chi for the upcoming season.

La Russa hasn't managed a club for nine years, and at 76 will be the oldest manager in the big leagues. It's said that he is a successful manager because, instead of going with gut instinct and hunches, he studies baseball scientifically, calculating the odds of certain batters vs. certain pitchers and so forth.

On the other hand, he is regarded as old-school, and not of the mindset to deal with today's players. One of the free-agent pitchers the Sox had hoped to sign, Marcus Stroman, is quoted in the papers as saying he wouldn't play for La Russa for any amount of money.

So there's that. And this:

The day before he was hired, police in Phoenix revealed that LaRussa had been arrested there last February, after he ALLEGEDLY ran his car into a curb and abandoned the smoking (probably more "steaming") vehicle on the side of the road.

From my DWI mugshot file

The affidavit filed by the arresting officer said that Tony was "argumentative" during his arrest. How about that?

But what frosts my flakes is that this is his SECOND DWI arrest. He pleaded guilty to it in Jupiter, Florida, in 2007.

When reached by ESPN on Monday night, La Russa said, "I have nothing to say," and he hung up the phone.

On the day of his guilty plea to the 2007 DUI, La Russa said in a statement: "I accept full responsibility for my conduct, and assure everyone that I have learned a very valuable lesson and that this will never occur again."

Oh, by the way, La Russa earned his JD degree from Florida State U in 1978. Since he's a lawyer, you would think he knows there is a law against drunk driving.