Brown said the conversation ended amicably with a handshake, but La Russa fired back the following day in an interview with AZ Central.Longtime Pirates announcer Greg Brown said La Russa "stormed in" just before the end of a commercial break and accused Brown of disparaging him. Brown took La Russa to the back of the booth away from microphones while color commentator Steve Blass handled solo duties for a few minutes.
"I was telling him, 'Nobody defends you more than I do,'" Brown told the Tribune-Review in the pressbox Thursday before the series finale. "If he only knew how many times I have stood up for him and agreed with him."
You have to admire the size of an ego that would allow a man not onlyto interrupt an opposing team's live broadcast but also to claim the moral high ground in so doing. Brown, for his part, says he was anticipating an apology from La Russa and said he was "disappointed more than anything" when he heard of La Russa's follow-up comments.The Pirates lead the Diamondbacks 5-3 in the eighth inning of their final meeting this season.[TribLive]"I never have stood for inaccuracies," La Russa said, "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."