CHICAGO — Manager Tony La Russa will not return for the rest of the season at the direction of his doctors, the Chicago White Sox announced Saturday in a statement.
“After undergoing additional testing and medical procedures over the past week, doctors for Tony La Russa have directed him to not return as manager of the Chicago White Sox for the remainder of the 2022 season,” the statement read.
The Sox have been without La Russa, 77, since Aug. 30, when they announced less than an hour before a game against the Kansas City Royals that he would not manage that night at the direction of his doctors.
The next day the Sox said La Russa was out indefinitely and would undergo further testing with doctors in Arizona.
La Russa attended a ceremony for former pitcher Dave Stewart on Sept. 11 in Oakland, Calif.
“Health ain’t nothing to mess with,”La Russa said before the event. “I got checked in Chicago and the reason I flew to Arizona is because that’s been the place since the ‘90s I’ve had physicals. They addressed it, they fixed it, now it’s just a question of regaining strength. Don’t mess with health.”
He told Janie McCauley of the Associated Press he had a pacemaker inserted for his heart.
La Russa is second all time among major league managers in victories. The 2014 Hall of Fame inductee won World Series titles with the Oakland Athletics (1989) and St. Louis Cardinals (2006, 2011).
Bench coach Miguel Cairo will continue as the acting manager for the remainder of the season. The Sox are 13-10 since Cairo took over Aug. 30.
