La Russa To Return

Tony La Russa will manage the Cardinals for a 16th season in 2011.
I was just looking at his numbers on www.baseball-reference.com and they are astounding.
First of all, it is difficult to believe that he's been managing the Cardinals for so long. He's managed the Cards for five more seasons than he piloted the Athletics. And it seemed as if he was in Oakland forever.
He also managed the White Sox for eight seasons.
You may like La Russa, plenty do, you may dislike La Russa, plenty do. But you can't say he's a job hopper. He seems to stay put for a while.
If he manages two more seasons, he'll pass John McGraw on the all-time list. McGraw has 2,763 wins, 126 more than La Russa's 2,638.
La Russa will be hard pressed though to pass the all-time leader, Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy, better known as Connie Mack. The guy who managed in street clothes and was always called "Mr. Mack" by his players, won 3,731 games over the course of his 53-year managerial career. I don't think La Russa will manage 21 more seasons.
Interesting fact about Connie Mack is that he had a losing career record as a manager. He lost 3,948 games. The reason he had such good job security, 50-years as the Philadelphia Athletics skipper, is because he owned the ballclub!
Good trivia question: Which team did Mack manage for three years before he managed the A's?
Answer: The Pittsburgh Pirates, which he was the bench boss for beginning in 1894 at the age of 31.
He took over the Athletics in 1901, the first year of the American League and ended his reign at the age of 87 with a 52-102 campaign in 1950. Can you imagine anyone else managing a Major League team these days, or any team, at the age of 87?