Personal Life
La Russa and second wife Elaine are the founders of Tony La Russa's Animal Rescue Foundation, headquartered in Walnut Creek, California, which saves abandoned and injured animals as well as running programs to bring dog and cat visits to abused children, hospital patients, seniors and shut-ins. La Russa is also a vegetarian. The La Russas have two daughters, Bianca & Devon, and reside in Alamo, California.
La Russa has two older daughters, Andrea & Averie from his first marriage to Luzette Sarcone. La Russa and Sarcone divorced in 1973 and Sarcone received full custody of their daughters. La Russa married Elaine Coker shortly after his divorce to Sarcone became official.
La Russa is also personal friends with celebrities outside the sports world, such as pianist and songwriter Bruce Hornsby, Bruce Springsteen and jazz bassist Christian McBride. In 2007, at a concert in San Francisco on La Russa's birthday, Hornsby played a comedic song he named "Hooray For Tony". The original song, titled "Hooray For Tom," is La Russa's favorite Hornsby song. In the "Hooray For Tony" version, Hornsby mentions the "Bash Brothers" Mark McGwire and José Canseco (from La Russa's days as the manager of the Oakland A's), Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds, ARF, and La Russa's World Series Championships.
La Russa is a graduate of the University of South Florida and the Florida State University College of Law.
La Russa has Italian and Spanish ancestry, and speaks fluent Spanish. He was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. La Russa was also inducted into the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame on April 11, 2008 in a pregame ceremony at AT&T Park.
La Russa and his family had an uncredited extra role in the film Angels in the Outfield. The La Russa's made an appearance in an episode of Housecat Housecall, a reality show on Animal Planet presented by Purina Cat Chow, during the show's third season, which began on June 5, 2010. In 1980, La Russa appeared as a contestant on the game show To Tell The Truth, and helped fool the celebrity panel.
In June 2010, La Russa was asked about a tea party protest taking place during his game against the Arizona Diamondbacks that criticized the Diamondbacks' position against the controversial new Arizona immigration statute. La Russa expressed support for the Tea Partiers' right to free speech to protest at the ballpark. He also stated, "I'm actually a supporter of what Arizona is doing... you know if people don't fix their problems they have to take care of it themselves."
La Russa and Pujols attended Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally on August 28, 2010 in Washington, D.C. while the Cardinals were in town for a series against the Washington Nationals. LaRussa decided to attend after being told by Beck that the rally was not political in nature.
Throughout the 2011 season, La Russa has been struggling with shingles. He originally disclosed that it was conjunctivitis, however, on May 10, after a visit to the Mayo Clinic (Scottsdale, Arizona), he disclosed that he was dealing with a case of shingles, and had to take off a few days for treatment and rest. Because bench coach Joe Pettini was named 'acting manager' instead of 'interim manager', it assures that La Russa will be credited for all wins and losses the team plays without him there.
On March 22, 2007 La Russa was arrested in Jupiter, Florida for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. He was found asleep at the wheel of his running SUV with the car in park at a stop sign. He was booked at the Palm Beach County Jail and blew a .093 blood- alcohol content, above the legal limit of .08. Calling his arrest on the DUI charge an "embarrassment," La Russa apologized to "anyone who is close to me, members of the Cardinals organization, our fans." He was defended by the organization and players, such as Albert Pujols. On November 28, 2007 La Russa pleaded guilty to DUI, saying it was in the best interest of all concerned. "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," La Russa said in a statement released by his attorney.
On June 4, 2009 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that La Russa had sued the online social network platform Twitter in May, 2009 for a fake page established under his name on the site. La Russa claimed that he had "suffered significant emotional distress (and) damage to reputation" because of the profile. The fake profile made several "distasteful references" to La Russa and his team, according to the suit. Twitter's terms of service forbids impersonation directly, stating that users "may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others." Reports that Twitter had settled the suit ("the first celebrity lawsuit against the 32-million-user site" according to the Wall Street Journal) were rebuffed on the official Twitter blog, and the status of the lawsuit remains undetermined.
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