Even in the middle of his best season, there was drama. Rasmus was on his way to striking out 148 times. And he said Tuesday that La Russa threatened him every year he was in St. Louis with demotions to Triple-A Memphis. The center fielder told the Ledger-Enquirer in September 2010 that he requested a trade, although informally, after another demotion threat.
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"Batting here and batting there, then the media is asking me about it, everybody is asking me about it. I was like, ‘I don’t know, man. I just want to play the game.’ They made it such a big deal. It got crazy. Every time he moved me in the lineup, the media is in my face. It’s like, ‘I don’t care.’ But it did get to the point where it started affecting me because I just couldn’t get away from it."
“I just got to the point where I didn’t want to play for him. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like the way he went about it, and I feel like he made me a worse player.”
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“I think last year, going into the season, I was already beat down,” Rasmus said. “I wasn’t in a good place. To be honest with you, I didn’t really want to go. I knew how it was going to be. I just had a bad feeling about it to begin with because it was just wearing on me being there."
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“The fans in St. Louis started getting mad with me and that just added fuel to the fire,” he said. “It wasn’t good. Fans were yelling at me from the outfield. Coming into the dugout getting blasted for doing this and that and doing things wrong, it might have started making me doubt myself.”
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“He was old-school,” Rasmus said, referring to La Russa. “He was all about controlling the game. He wants to be the reason we won or lost, by doing all his moves and this and that.”
Rasmus said if he saw La Russa again, there would probably be no words between the two.
“No, I wouldn’t say anything to him,” he said. “I wouldn’t have anything to say.”
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2012/02/ ... -deck.html
and on the speculative side...i found it interesting how colby sinlged out bautista in the scrum the other day, about how jose doesn't try to put his ego on top of anyone...perhaps in comparison to pujols who's known to put himself on the pedestal
