Inside 'a beautiful, complex game'
'Three Nights' with Tony La Russa and Buzz Bissinger
By Todd Leopold
CNN
(CNN) -- Buzz Bissinger doesn't know any other way to do his job.
To write a book about a championship Texas high school football team, he moved to the team's hometown of Odessa and spent more than a year soaking up information. The result, the award-winning "Friday Night Lights," went beyond simply chronicling a football season; it exposed Odessa's racial politics, it's boom-and-bust oil mentality and its zealous passion for football.
When he wanted to write about the challenges of a big-city mayor, he practically slept in the office of Philadelphia's Ed Rendell (now Pennsylvania's governor) for Rendell's four-year first term. Bissinger's ensuing book, "A Prayer for the City," painted a colorful picture of Philadelphia's neighborhoods, people and politico-economic machinations. It's been favorably compared to Robert Caro's monumental "The Power Broker."
So, when Bissinger was asked to work with St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa on a book, he jumped in with both feet -- which meant a year of traveling with the team, picking La Russa's brain and following up with constant phone calls.
"It's the style of reporting I like to do," Bissinger said in a phone interview from his home in Philadelphia. (One can almost hear him shrugging.) Not that he doesn't wonder about the investment of energy and time. "When the books do well, it's not a problem. When they don't, I ask myself, 'Why did I do that?' "
In the case of the La Russa book, "Three Nights in August" (Houghton Mifflin), he doesn't have to ask. The book has been safely ensconced in the New York Times' bestseller list since it came out last month.
The loneliest job in baseball
In "Three Nights," Bissinger eschews his usual big-picture landscapes for a tight portrait of a baseball manager's decision making. The book keys in on an important three-game set between La Russa's Cardinals and their archrivals, the Chicago Cubs, in late August 2003, when the two teams were competing for a division title.
Almost every at-bat, every managerial move, is scrutinized: should La Russa retaliate for a hit batsman? Should he hit and run early in a 0-0 pitcher's duel? What players need stroking and what players need butt-kicking?
And how will all of this set up the Cardinals for tomorrow, next week, next month?
Bissinger makes the occasional detour to sketch a handful of Cardinal players and some of the managerial staff -- notably La Russa's right hand, pitching coach Dave Duncan -- but, in the end, it's La Russa's book.
"At the end of the day, I wanted to go deep inside the dugout," Bissinger said. "This book was best through La Russa's eyes."
La Russa's head wasn't always a friendly place. The manager, known as one of the most cerebral in baseball, broods on mistakes and doesn't let go of losses easily. At one point, Bissinger describes him eating dinner late at night in some strange city, alone, pondering blown opportunities and turning decisions over and over in his brain.
"There's something lonely about Tony," Bissinger says now. "He takes a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. ... I think it's made him a great manager, but it also leads to loneliness."
He adds, however, that the two struck up a rapport right away, and that La Russa could have his lighter moments. "When he's not managing, he's open and forthcoming," Bissinger said. However, during the season, "I had to be far more quiet [about being around] and pick my spots with Tony. And never after a loss."
Details, details
For his part, La Russa enjoyed the collaboration.
"[We trusted] that he would take the access and tell an honest story and do it in an entertaining way," he told CNN's Daryn Kagan. "This is really a good look at what we're facing."
Bissinger also shows the human side of managing. Ballplayers aren't pieces of meat, he notes, and they have their emotional ups and downs like anyone else. The Cardinals went through a particularly rough patch in 2002 when the well-liked pitcher Darryl Kile was found dead in his hotel room of a massive heart attack.
"That was such a horrible, tragic moment," Bissinger said. "I thought it said a lot about Tony, the way he coaxed the team into playing. ... I know the players were shell-shocked. Athletes aren't prone to feeling mortal about themselves."
Bissinger emerged from "Three Nights in August" with a great deal of respect for La Russa, though he still disagrees with the manager on some issues -- notably La Russa's defense of retired slugger Mark McGwire.
McGwire, the one-time season home run king who has denied taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs, declined to answer questions about steroids during government hearings in March.
La Russa told CNN that he doesn't believe McGwire used steroids during his record-setting 1998 season. "I saw the work over the many, many years when he pounded it hard in a legal way. You can get strong legally. I think he did," he told Kagan.
Bissinger said he saw "no signs" of steroids in the clubhouse -- "I'm convinced it's not happening with the Cardinals" -- but "I don't agree with Tony with the stance on McGwire. I think [the steroid scandal] is tragic."
However, Bissinger said, La Russa opened his eyes to so much of baseball's oft-hidden details.
"I knew baseball. It was -- it is -- a beautiful, complex game," he said. "But I had no idea how many layers there are. ... I had no idea how much video has revolutionized the game. Then there's the human complexities, the amount of time Tony and the others have to spend inside players' heads. He has to be a combination of Dr. Phil, Dr. Seuss and Dr. Ruth."
Indeed, it seems La Russa managed to get inside Bissinger's head a little. The author, a former New York Yankees booster, admits that he's now a Cardinals fan.
"I have a terrific fondness for the Cardinals. I love their relationship with the region, with their fans," he said. "I grew up a Yankees fan, but La Russa won me over."
