Tony La Russa uses praise for Andrew Vaughn to take another shot at Yermin Mercedes

Tony La Russa had high praise for Andrew Vaughn, which also doubled as a thinly veiled shot at some other White Sox players. 

How long would it take before Tony La Russa and the White Sox encountered clubhouse culture issues? If you had ‘less than two full months’ on your bingo card congratulations, you just won.

Ever since La Russa shouted from his lawn about Yermin Mercedes doing baseball when unwritten rules dictated he shouldn’t have, focus on the White Sox has shifted from how they might be World Series contenders — they sit at +1000 World Series odds as of writing this — to varying off-field things holding them back.

Notably, La Russa is applying an outdated old school approach to a new school era in baseball. Oil and water mix better than this, something a new thing on the South Side proves every single day.

After torching Mercedes to the media, praising an opponent for pitching at him, and tossing anyone who aligned themselves against him under the bus, La Russa is back at it with shadow boxing his own clubhouse.

Andrew Vaughn drew high praise from La Russa this week, but everything the Sox manager said seemed less about how great one slugger is and more about still sending a message to another.

“A very solid individual. He doesn’t celebrate anything too early. He works. He grinds, competes. I think his mind, his attitude, his character is the best part of him. That’s saying a lot. He’s got a great head,” La Russa said.

For comparison, this is what La Russa said, doing his best mafia don impression, only a handful of days ago about Mercedes hitting a home run on a 3-0 pitch:

"“He made a mistake. There will be a consequence he has to endure here within our family. The fact that he’s a rookie and excited helps explain why he just was clueless. But now he’s got a clue.”"

For what it’s worth, Mercedes has done nothing but grind during his short career:

It’s impossible to separate the two comments, as well as the many layers of subtext within them. Both Mercedes and Vaughn are rookies, both of them are sluggers of the future and important pieces of the White Sox core, and one is white and one is not. All of those points matter, and given baseball’s history and the coded and often dismissive and sometimes subconscious way minorities are talked about in America the last point is particularly relevant.

La Russa clearly has a plan to take one of the most fun teams in baseball and rip that from them like Thanos tearing the mind stone out of Vision’s head in Infinity War.

That’s not what we all envisioned the future of baseball on the South Side would be, but that’s what happens when the oldest manager in baseball is in charge of putting his the way things used to be stamp on one of the league’s youngest rosters.