Players and fans love him or hate him, so it's surprising that people know very little about St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa's life; this biography goes behind the scenes of one of the most iconic figures in baseball today to show the influences behind his intensity and uncompromising focus, why winning every game possible is important to him, and why he often puts the game ahead of his private and personal life. Including interviews with past and current players, managers, executives, and even La Russa himself and intensive research from newspapers, magazines, and other archive material, the book reconstructs La Russa's life from his days as a young boy growing up in Tampa, where he spoke Spanish before he learned English, to his standing as the third-winningest manager in baseball history.