In announcing his retirement, Tony La Russa hinted that one of his post-managing ventures might be to buy a minor-league team.  With that in mind, we’d like to provide an initial list of eight teams for his winter shopping:

1. Richmond Flying Squirrels (Giants, AA): A simple rework of the mascot would allow him to honor the 2011 Cardinals Rally Squirrel.
2. Las Vegas 51s (Blue Jays, AAA): Lest retirement life become too placid, owning the 51s would give TLR a chance to again trade Colby Rasmus when he inevitably gets a weeklong midseason demotion.
3. Charleston RiverDogs (Yankees, A): Every night would be “bring your dog to the park night.” If you don’t have your own, bring that stray you found down by the river.
4. Yuma Scorpions (Independent): This would be a golden opportunity to be reunited with Jose (manager) and Ozzie (hitting coach) Canseco. The independent league can’t have rules agains the coaches ‘roiding up, can they?
5. Novara Baseball United (Italian Baseball League): He accomplished everything he could in this hemisphere, so why not return to and conquer the familial homeland? If anyone can turn around a team that went 3-39 (.071 winning percentage) in 2011, La Russa can. Added bonus: He would inherit Frankenstein-reliever Tavarez Franklin.
6. Hudson Valley Renegades (Rays, SS): La Russa will be right at home with a team who once used walkie talkies to communicate with their bullpen.
7. New Britain Rock Cats (Twins, AA): An ownership stake in the Rock Cats affords La Russa the opportunity to promote the scrappy 5-foot-3 Chris Cates, shortest player in minor league baseball.
8. Buffalo Bisons (Mets, AAA): First order of business: Change name to Buffalo Tofu.

Today, as Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times kindly chronicles, is the 60th anniversary of the debut of baseball’s shortest player (and owner of the best career on-base percentage), Eddie Gaedel. In honor of the St. Louis Browns’ Gaedel and vertically challenged players everywhere, we present two all-time teams, prompted by a discussion with curator of all things abnormal, Matt Sebek: The All-Time Diminutive Cardinals and the All-Time Diminutive Browns (that is, 5′9″ and under). We took the best single-season performances at each position and filled a 25-man roster for each team.

First, Bill Veeck’s Browns:

And the Cardinals:

Notes:

• The Cardinals lineup features several Hall of Famers: Wallace, Burkett, Slaughter, Bresnahan, Huggins, Eckstein*.
• And you thought Branch Rickey was famous only for his role in Jackie Robinson’s career! He was a legendary short player!
• Crab Burkett, Wallace and Willie Sudhoff appear on both teams.
• Long before Stubby Clapp came onto the scene, there was Stubby Overmire.

* University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame

Do you ever run across a simply appalling use of a statistic (perhaps even in this blog!) and wish you could be compensated for the few seconds of your life spent wallowing in ignorance that you wish you had back? Well, now you can! Enter our first, possibly annual, Lamest Stat of the Year competition and you might win a pair of tickets to the May 17 Cardinals game, courtesy of the Cardinals and Social-Media Night.

To play, simply post a comment to this post with the quoted stat in context, the source and date (from 2011). You can optionally explain why you think it’s so lame, though most speak for themselves. Here’s an example:

“In his previous nine at-bats with runners in scoring position, Descalso had four hits. He had also reached base via an intentional walk, a hit by pitch, and a straight walk in recent plate appearances with RISP.”

Source: Post-Dispatch, May 10, 2011

To be clear, the lameness of the stat is not in how it reflects on the player or team (such as how high Trever Miller’s xFIP is) but how badly used it is in the article or post. In the interest of equanimity and fair play, you can even submit something from this blog or our network affiliate, ESPN. Goodness knows we’ve given you some opportunities!

The crack team at Fungoes will review the submissions and reward the lamest with two tickets to the game. All submissions must be date-stamped by Sunday, May 15 at midnight. Feel free to weigh in on others’ submissions and stump for your own. And may the lamest stat win!

[Special thanks to the Cardinals for providing the prize tickets.]

Just when Opening Day couldn’t get much worse for Tony La Russa, whose Cardinals dropped their home opener 5-3 to the Padres, he learned that he is being sued.

A group of current and former players filed a class-action lawsuit Friday claiming that the Cardinal manager has "systematically recruited, employed and given preferential treatment to so-called ’scrappy’ players" during his tenure in St. Louis. The suit is reported to represent up to 1000 current and former players who claimed discriminatory treatment.

La Russa was unavailable for comment, as he was having dinner with former players David Bell and Bo Hart.

The case is driven by a dozen players, who to win the case, must convince the court of their claims that La Russa went too far in not only acquiring scrappy players but giving them inordinate playing time. Though classification is often difficult, the Major Leagues have more than 600 legitimately non-scrappy players, though they have been historically under-represented on La Russa’s Cardinal teams. The suit alleges that the Cardinals, with Ryan Theriot, Skip Schumaker, Nick Punto and Daniel Descalso on the 2011 roster, have fewer opportunities for non-scrappy players.

If found guilty, La Russa could be forced to add more non-scrappy players to his team, bench Schumaker for a period of time or simply give more opportunities to players with higher on-base and slugging percentages and who can’t bunt. Sources close to La Russa say that none of the options is tenable for the veteran manager.

A handful of players, led by Adam Dunn, planned a march outside Busch Stadium this afternoon. Orlando Hudson, in town this weekend for the opening series, may join them.

In many ways, the perennial free agent is an ideal La Russa infielder: He’s a switch hitter, hustles on defense and had a sub-.400 slugging percentage last year. But look a little closer and you’ll notice that he’s a full six-feet tall, a trait that he feels is what keeps him from working for the Cardinal manager.

"It’s just frustrating. You try to play baseball the right way, to be scrappy, but my height isn’t something I can control."

Then there’s the question of just how scrappy a player has to be. Willie Bloomquist, who stands 5′11", has a career OBP of .317 and SLG of .336 and plays many positions, none of them well, would be considered by many a scrappy player. But he has tallied only 22 sacrifice bunts in 2056 plate appearances, leading many litigants to claim that La Russa has unfair standard for scrappiness.

Yet s ome of La Russa’s former players known as scrappy came to his defense. Aaron Miles, who played two stints for La Russa, denied that he received preferential treatment.

"Look, the scrappiness had nothing to do with it. I don’t think he even thought of me as scrappy," said Miles."I had 16 career home runs, I could pitch. I earned that playing time."

Other former Cardinals weren’t convinced. Dmitri Young, Chris Duncan, Dennys Reyes and Ray King were some of the players who signed onto the lawsuit, which players hope to be settled by next April 1.

A separate group is reportedly also looking into possible discrimination by La Russa’s animal-rescue foundation, ARF, against non-scrappy dogs, such as Pomeranians, members of the Bloodhound family and Beagles.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

A vote for the finest rookie.