ST. LOUIS (AP) — St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is suing the social-networking site Twitter, claiming an unauthorized page that used his name to make light of drunken driving and two Cardinals pitchers who died damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress.
The lawsuit claims that someone created a false account under La Russa's name and posted updates, known as "tweets," that gave the false impression that the comments came from La Russa. The suit said the comments were "derogatory and demeaning" and damaged La Russa's trademark rights.
The account bearing La Russa's name is no longer active. The lawsuit includes a screen shot of three tweets. One posted on April 19 said: "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher."
In 2002, Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile died of a heart condition in his Chicago hotel room. In 2007, another pitcher — Josh Hancock — died in an auto accident while driving drunk. A month earlier, La Russa was stopped for DUI and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
So the tweet about getting out of Chicago without any dead pitchers or DUIs was, to say the least, not cool.
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