Column: The longer the Chicago White Sox stay in contention, the more it looks like Tony La Russa won’t return to the dugout

Tony La Russa won’t be back for the three-game series against the Cleveland Guardians, the biggest games of the season for the Chicago White Sox.

Acting manager Miguel Cairo made the announcement midway through a pregame news conference Tuesday, giving no indication when or if La Russa would return.

“Right now he doesn’t want to be in this series, and we don’t expect to see him in this series,” Cairo said. “And we’ll just see what’s going to happen. The doctors don’t give him the clear (to return) yet.”

It may be understandable why doctors have yet to clear La Russa to manage in a pennant race, which can be stressful. But he already has watched three Sox games at ballparks, including two from a suite at Guaranteed Rate Field.

You might think he would want to be around the players to show his support, even from a distance. When I asked Cairo why La Russa didn’t want to be here, he corrected himself.

“No, the doctors didn’t clear him,” Cairo said.

Not even to watch from a suite?

“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “I didn’t talk to the doctor.”

Cairo added that La Russa “is OK to come but not to manage.”

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I feel for Cairo. He shouldn’t have to answer questions that are better posed to the front office. But general manager Rick Hahn remained out while recovering from COVID-19, and no one else was saying anything about La Russa’s status.

Out of sight, out of mind?

Will we ever see La Russa again?

Three weeks have passed since he left the Sox dugout for an issue with his pacemaker that supposedly has been fixed. Yet there’s no word from the Sox on whether he can or will return.

It would be easy to assume he’s done for the year, and certainly no one is clamoring for La Russa. But he’s still officially the Sox manager, and until he’s ruled out, the possibility exists that he will come back — like it or not.

I can’t imagine a worse ending for La Russa than having to watch the Sox play crucial games without him being in the dugout. Maybe it’s easier for him to just stay away from the ballpark, but that doesn’t explain why he came to Guaranteed Rate for the Colorado Rockies series last week.

He’s also very superstitious, and the Sox were 1-2 with him at their games, including a Sept. 11 loss in Oakland. But that would be a silly reason to stay away.

Cairo said he talks to La Russa every day, and he continued to tell us what a great manager La Russa is. But we don’t know if he’s implementing anything La Russa suggests. In fact we don’t know anything because the Sox basically made La Russa disappear without a trace.

Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf couldn’t have had this in mind when he brought his friend out of retirement two years ago.

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Whether La Russa is back or not, he already has left his mark, according to closer Liam Hendriks.

“His fingerprints are all over this clubhouse, this organization,” Hendriks said Tuesday. “We’ve got a lot of guys, they have their positions that they’ve got now because of what Tony brought in last year. … He set the floor plan. Hopefully we can get him back in here at some point.

“But Miggy’s taking it and tweaking it a little bit (for) a couple of the guys who needed it a little tweaked. And that’s been fantastic. You see a little more energy out there from certain guys. Certain guys are feeling a little more comfortable as well. But hopefully we can get him back in here and everyone continues this momentum going forward.”

If certain guys are providing “more energy” and “feeling more comfortable,” it makes little sense to make a change now. That’s probably what Hahn is thinking, if he were permitted to say what he really thinks.

How much credit Cairo deserves for the Sox resurgence is debatable, but there’s no question the team woke up from its five-month slumber since he took over Aug. 30, going 13-6 entering Tuesday’s game. If they had played like this for La Russa, the Sox would have run away with the worst division in baseball instead of playing the Guardians in a life-or-death series.

Whether Cairo deserves to keep the job next year if La Russa doesn’t return is the next big question no one can discuss.

If the Sox make the playoffs, it would seem hard to justify replacing Cairo, though Hahn had no problem getting rid of Rick Renteria after he led them to the postseason in 2020 for the first time in 12 years. The Sox called it a “mutual” agreement, as if Renteria would walk away from the rebuild after it finally turned the corner.

Renteria disappeared and hasn’t spoken publicly about his dismissal. Maybe La Russa will come to another “mutual” agreement.

If not Cairo, then who?

If the Sox are looking to boost attendance, they should hire Joe Maddon, who is busy promoting his new book while waiting for the next managerial opening. Or if Reinsdorf wanted to turn the team over to a longtime favorite, he could turn to A.J. Pierzynski, who has made no bones about being willing to listen if the job opens.

Everything will be a guessing game once the season ends, unless the Sox get ahead of the situation and make an announcement on La Russa’s status. You may remember last year’s cliffhanger, when La Russa said after the playoff loss to the Houston Astros that he would be back only if the players wanted him.

“If (management says) yes, then you ask the players,” he said. “They should choose who they want to manage.”

A few weeks later, when La Russa confirmed he would return in 2022, I asked him how long he could manage.

“I know if we don’t win in spring training, I won’t make opening day,” he quipped. “That’s my attitude.”

La Russa couldn’t have predicted last October his Hall of Fame career might end like this.

But the longer the Sox stay in the race, the less likely it seems he’ll make it back.