Hey, Tony! Where have you been?

TONY LARUSSA, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, rattled many of the descendants of Abner Doubleday and his flock by declaring that he would visit the Glenn Beck revival meeting at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday. He would come, he said earlier, to introduce his star slugger, Albert Pujols, ostensibly believing that Beck merely wanted to restore everybody's honor by rallying their patriotism with another of his oratorical spasms. How dumb of LaRussa.

I mean, here's a guy who knows how to transmit signals to his players by flicking his ears and scratching his chest, who wants us to believe that he wasn't attending a political bash featuring Beck, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party cast of thousands. When asked about his unseemly agreement to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Beck, LaRussa defended his decision to accept Beck's invitation:

"I don't know who's going to be there, who's going to accept it. But the gist of the day is not political. I think it's a really good concept, actually."

Tony! How could you miss the signals?

Although the Beck Tea Partyers have been whining to get their country back, I think LaRussa has unwittingly contradicted their notions by demonstrating that he can show up any place, any time, by God, to demonstrate his personal freedom. But that also means he is just as free to be stupid by denying the political sausage that would come from the podium at the rally.

When he was a major league infielder, his lifetime batting average was .199. He just added a another strikeout to that record.