Pittsburgh Pirates

Tony La Russa confronts Pirates broadcasters to dispute on-air comments

Published May. 26, 2016 7:54 p.m. ET

foxsports

Arizona Diamondbacks Chief Baseball Officer Tony La Russa admitted Thursday that he confronted Pittsburgh Pirates broadcasters during Tuesday's game regarding on-air comments.

La Russa went into the Pirates broadcast booth after Diamondbacks' hitters Jean Segura and Nick Ahmed were hit by pitches in back-to-back innings by Pirates reliever Arquimedes Caminero. La Russa acknowledged Thursday that he went into the booth because he "heard some stuff on the air" about retaliatory pitches during his managerial career that he felt were not accurate.

"I never have stood for inaccuracies," La Russa told the Arizona Republic, "so I corrected the inaccuracies.

"It's about taking responsibility. If you're going to speak untruths then you're going to get challenged and you should be responsible for what you say. I am. I reacted."

@Nathan_Hursh He did. Moments before coming back from break! Steve had to carry broadcast solo for a few minutes as I was off headsets.
— Greg Brown (@gbrowniepoints) May 26, 2016

La Russa believes that many pitchers in today's game lack the control to pitch effectively inside without endangering the health of the batter.

"A lot of guys who are pitching in don't have the ability at this point to command it and it becomes very dangerous," La Russa said. "The reasoning you get from the other side is they didn't mean to do it intentionally. If you don't have command, then that's intentionally careless."