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Tony La Russa's Manhattan Project

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"The message was simple: The more rest, the better," Neyer says. "But it was forgotten as the threats of fascism and then Red Communism faded away. By the time the 21st century rolled around, the value of extended rest had been almost completely forgotten. But now it's been recalled -- by the Cardinals. They've discovered a simple truth, which is that players like Jack Perconte and Kent Hrbek still have plenty of great baseball in them -- they just needed to recharge their batteries."

Buoyed by encouragement from the likes of Neyer and Jois, La Russa set about the task of picking 25 retired ballplayers. Why these particular 25 players? Doubtless one factor is a hunger La Russa sensed in each. Another is the ample R&R. But Neyer says certain members of the Shadow Cardinals exhibit demonstrable statistical promise.

"Bob Horner was a man before his time," Neyer asserts. "On July 6, 1986, Horner hit four home runs in one game. But it was a lot harder to hit home runs back then. In 1986 there were 1.6 home runs for every National League game; but in 2003 there were 2.1 homers per game -- nearly 33 percent more.

"Give Horner another chance and he's likely to hit five or six home runs in a game -- and that's without steroids," Neyer says, citing Gorman Thomas, Lance Parrish and Pedro Guerrero as three other Shadow Cardinals whose lumber-driven projectiles may find the left-field bleachers even more often with advanced age. And there's virtually no limit on a pitcher's age, Neyer maintains, as the careers of Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Hoyt Wilhelm, Phil Niekro and Nolan Ryan amply show. "Look at guys like Jesse Orosco, who's still going strong today at 47," Neyer adds. "And in the case of pitchers, rest can only help matters."

To manage the Shadow Cardinals, La Russa tapped St. Louis native Dick Williams, perhaps the only man more revered than himself in Oakland, where Williams guided the '72 and '73 A's to back-to-back World Series titles. Before Oakland, Williams had managed the Boston Red Sox, catapulting the team from last place to the World Series in 1967, his first year as skipper. After leaving Oakland following the 1973 world championship, Williams moved on to more measured success in Anaheim, Montreal, San Diego and Seattle.

"If there's one iota of sane method to this madness, it's the leadership in Manhattan," the Cardinals front-office source says of Williams and his coaching staff, which includes pitching coach Roger Craig, first base coach Bill Virdon, third base coach Jimmy Davenport and former Cardinal great Dick Groat in the role of special fielding instructor. "Jack McKeon showed everyone last year that managers can get better with age. It's the players I'm not so sure about."

With a formidable 1,571 career wins, Williams seemed a lock for the baseball Hall of Fame until he was arrested for indecent exposure after being caught masturbating outside his hotel room while attending a baseball fantasy camp in Fort Myers, Florida, in January 2000. Williams pleaded no-contest after spending a night in jail and offered a terse explanation for his behavior to the Associated Press: "The case has been settled and dismissed. That's all I have to say."

Having started at shortstop for Williams' 1984 World Series runners-up, the first Padres team ever to reach the Fall Classic, Garry Templeton knows the wily old manager well. "You take cultural taboo out of the equation, and what Dick did down in Fort Myers was just stress relief," Templeton observes. "Shit, everyone's got one of those embarrassing stories. Just because a guy hits a little bump in the road doesn't mean he's, like, clinically masturbed. Besides, it don't have nothing to do with his professional credentials, which are impeccable. The man belongs in the Hall of Fame -- no two ways about it."

It was Tony La Russa's friendship with ex-basketball star Mitch Richmond that brought the Shadow Cardinals to Manhattan. The pair became acquainted in 1988, when the former was leading the A's and the latter was a member of the Golden State Warriors. Fresh out of Kansas State University, the socioeconomic engine of the Little Apple, Richmond averaged 22 points per game that season and garnered NBA Rookie of the Year honors. More important (for La Russa, at least), Richmond was in the stands to support his new friend when the A's skipper clinched his first and only World Series in 1989. After Richmond was traded to Sacramento following the 1990-91 campaign, La Russa frequently made the jaunt north on Interstate 5 to Arco Arena. And even as the hoops life took Richmond to new homes in Washington, D.C., and then LA, he'd come home after road trips to hear long, supportive voice messages from his baseball manager friend.

So it was only natural that when La Russa began pondering the Shadow Cardinals, he'd confide in Richmond. Manhattan rose to the top of the list of potential locations after Richmond told La Russa he happened to be building a world-class athletic training facility near his alma mater, complete with a veritable "Field of Dreams."

"When Tony said he was ready to see what he could do with a team of guys past their supposed prime, I figured what the hell," Richmond relates. "I had this training facility all ready to go anyhow. It's like that yoga guy says: 'Sometimes you can be the bat and the world is your ball. Hit it.'"

For his camp, La Russa sought a quiet setting far removed from the distractions of urban life, where his players could train together, eat together, bunk together and become a cohesive unit. The holistic program designed by Mysore yoga master K. Pattabhi Jois and implemented stateside by Jois disciple Lokesh Patel, required that all amenities -- bookstores, parks, houses of worship, etc. -- be located within walking distance of the players' quarters, as the Shadow Cards are only permitted to use their automobiles on Sundays.

Although Thomas, Horner and Higuera balked at the sometimes bizarre exercises Patel demands of them in addition to the required four hours a day of yoga and meditation, they and their teammates have come to see the value of the regimen.

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