In managerial game, they play by different rules

ST. LOUIS -- Perhaps we need to redefine what "winning" is.

"I beg your pardon?" said Tony La Russa when an inquisitor casually referred to the firing of Oakland A's manager Ken Macha.

I mean, the great skipper looked stunned.

Yup, Ken Macha is gone. The A's won the American League West and swept the Minnesota Twins in the Division Series. The A's then were swept themselves by the Detroit Tigers in the AL Championship Series. Does this mean he suddenly was overcome with an attack of the stupids in between series?

According to the questioner, Macha was let go amid whispers of friction with players.

"How'd they have such a great year if there was friction?" La Russa wondered. "How'd they beat Minnesota?"

Willie Randolph was similarly perplexed.

"I don't know anything about that situation," said the Mets manager. "But any time a manager loses his job, I feel sad. Kenny and I go back a long way in the minor leagues. I'm a little surprised. They had such a great year. But I've been in New York a long time. Nothing surprises me."

Macha went through the same thing a year ago. He was at the end of a contract, and his concept of his value to the cause and general manager Billy Beane's concept of his value to the cause didn't match up particularly well. Macha was not coming back. But before too long, Macha decided he was willing to work for Beane's price and he was rehired. And now, after what the rest of us would consider to be a fairly successful season, he's out again. Interesting. What does it all mean?

What it may all mean is that the Oakland managerial job is unlike any other. Billy Beane, a.k.a. Mr. Moneyball, is the face of the franchise. Anyone who has read Michael Lewis's excellent book knows that in the Billy Beane scheme of things, a manager is of limited import. Beane wants the game played a certain way, and he will make his opinions known. Beane doesn't need, or want, a celebrity manager. He wants a manager who will do what he's told.

I happened to speak with someone who knows Macha very well -- so well, in fact, that he had just gotten off the phone with the deposed skipper.

``He says it wasn't about `friction,' " explained the source. ``It was a general difference of opinion about how things should be done. That's just the way it is. Mach is fine. He thanked Billy for giving him an opportunity, because that's all he ever really wanted, an opportunity." It's rather evident that Tony La Russa never could work for Billy Beane.

Tony is the ultimate celebrity manager. He has been the focal figure in two best-selling books about baseball, George Will's ``Men At Work" and Buzz Bissinger's ``Three Nights In August." He has been a fixture in baseball for a quarter-century. On any short list of most recognizable names in all of baseball, La Russa would have to be in the top five. No other active manager is close.

It is fun at times to point out that he has managed to win only one world's championship (the 1989 A's), and that in his other three World Series, his teams' record is 1-12. I've indulged in that little parlor game myself. But it would be foolish to disparage him as a fraud. He is a great manager, and his opinion on matters managerial is welcome.

Thus, the rainy day question: What is the balance between professional and personal relationships with your players?

``You need a relationship where the players are willing to go in the right direction," La Russa said. ``Sometimes managers don't go back on their own, because, you know, they just get tuned out. And that's why, if an organization sees that, they don't bring them back."

La Russa is far more than just a baseball manager. He has put up millions of his own dollars for the benefit of animal rights causes. It stands to reason that if someone is an animal person, he is probably a people person, too, and so it should come as no surprise that La Russa strongly believes a manager has to do a lot more than write down nine names on a lineup card and run a ballgame.

``In the best situation," he maintained, ``you must have both a professional and a personal relationship with your players. In my opinion, if it's just an effective professional relationship, that's OK. But the dynamics of a baseball season, from spring training, to, hopefully, October, you're together so much that, `professional' alone, you're missing edges.

``There's got to be something personal with your players so that they respect, but there's feeling and there's caring and trust, and all that. I don't think you can just get up there and be a great strategist. I use [as an example] somebody like my friend Jim Leyland. To me Jim is incredible that way because he gets into their heads and hearts and he also has strategy. He's great."

There are all types of managers.

``Everyone has a different style," said Randolph. ``I don't think there's any blueprint. It's a combination of your makeup and the makeup of the ball club. You just have to be yourself and do what you do."

``Being yourself" can make you perfect for some situations and The Last Man On Earth for others. Leyland was quite obviously sent from Central Casting to manage the 2006 Tigers, just as he was the right man for the 1997 Florida Marlins. But he was the wrong man for the 1999 Colorado Rockies.

The New York Yankees needed Billy Martin in 1977 and then desperately needed Bob Lemon, the anti-Martin, a year later. That's the way it goes.

Quite frankly, I don't know who is the right man to manage the A's. Dominating his division and getting a team with a $60 million payroll one round deep in the playoffs wasn't enough for Macha to save his job. Does Beane honestly think Macha's successor will be the missing ingredient to get them a championship?

Good luck to the new guy.

In the end, they're all big boys, and they know the drill: Rare is the man who exits any managerial job on his own terms. I know Ken Macha a little myself. I think he did what he did his way, and if it wasn't good enough for Billy Beane, so be it. Macha slept very well last night, I'm sure, and before too long some savvy GM will hire him.

Every manager needs that perfect fit, plus a little luck, to win it all. Tony La Russa has one ring in 27 full seasons. He should know.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail is ryan@globe.com