Wha ?

St. Louis Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa explained in a post-game press conference that crowd noise caused bullpen personnel to not hear his requests for reliever Jason Motte, not once, but twice, resulting in a mismatch with Mike Napoli, a tie-breaking double, and ultimately a loss in Game 5 of the World Series.

"Is that my phone or yours?"

LaRussa claimed that in his first call to the bullpen he asked for Motte and Rzepczinski and eventually brought Rzepczinski to face David Murphy, whose double-play grounder ricocheted off Rzepczinski's hand to become a bases-loading single.  LaRussa said he again called bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist to get his closer throwing, and seeing that Motte was not throwing, left Rzepczinski in to throw to Napoli and the rest will now be history.

We're not sure what to make of this.  LaRussa took full responsibility for the mix up, admitting that he should have actually looked to see who was warming up in the bullpen.  He guessed that the crowd noise was sufficient to make phone conversation difficult. 

"One ringy-dingy..."

Having never managed a World Series game, we are loath to second-guess only the second manager to win World Series in both leagues, but if after the first time your directive to get a pitcher up was not followed, wouldn't you double check to make sure after you called the second time?  And since you had been to a World Series before, wouldn't you anticipate home crowd noise and other visitors' hazards?

"Can I what...?"

We have not heard from the bullpen coach and nobody had directly contradicted LaRussa's story, but it sounds somehow not quite right.  LaRussa had earlier declared Rzepczinski not available, so would anyone answering the bullpen phone get Rzepczinski throwing without question?  Why not send someone down to the bullpen to make sure Motte was warming up after the first botch-up?  And considering what a control-freak LaRussa is he seemed very not angry about such a colossal disaster that cost him Game 5 and quite possibly the Series.  It seems ludicrous to think LaRussa was making up a story to cover up a bad pitching choice; then again, just the Cardinals being in this year's World Series seemed ludicrous six weeks ago, but here we are.  Don't even get us started with Albert Pujols supposedly calling for a steal during his at-bat which resulted in a game-ending strike-em-out throw-em-out double play.

"Can you hold?  My other shoe is ringing"

Many observers have found the joke in this story with equipment that was invented when the National League was born, why couldn't they text, has nobody not heard of a cell phone, etc., but the problem wasn't with hardware or technology, it was the personnel using it.  Somebody screwed something up and LaRussa is handling it like a lawyer.

It's a wacky post-season.  Texas Rangers owner Nolan Ryan may have been right in his prediction of victory in six games.  Stay tuned.