Ex-Mets and A’s pitcher Ron Darling called a former St. Louis Cardinals bench guru “the most clinical” and “the most analytical” baseball man he ever played for in his 2019 memoir, 108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game. And he wasn’t talking about Tony La Russa.
While some baseball scribes have portrayed La Russa as an innovator, pioneer, and mastermind, Darling found pitching coach Dave Duncan to be the more scientific and systematic of the manager-coach combo on the 1991-95 A’s.