Last night, Ryan and I, (and one seven-week-old hitchhiker), went to the Cardinals game. When we ordered our (free!) tickets, we knew that they were giving away a Tony La Russa figurine, but it wasn’t until we got our tickets that they announced that they would be retiring La Russa’s #10 that night, as well.

I thought it was very cool how they combed his number into the grass of the outfield.

There were many baseball dignitaries in attendance–past and present Cardinals, as well as players and front-office people from La Russa’s other teams, and, of course, his family. Mike Shannon, the voice of the Cardinals, was the emcee of the ceremony.

Mayor Francis Slay gave him a key to the city of St. Louis

He also received a gold-dipped bat, with a list of his achievements as manager.

And a framed jersey.

Tony gave a nice speech, which was very focused on the organization, and not on himself.

The big moment came when they unveiled his picture and number on the left center field wall, just down the way from the other Cardinals greats who have already had their numbers retired.

The give-away was cool, too, as evidenced by the fact that some idiot was trying to buy them off of people, just to turn around and sell them on Ebay.

It was quite a night–I’ve never been to anything like that before, and I may never see such a thing again!