White Sox’ Tony La Russa is facing a crisis of criticism

White Sox manager Tony La Russa is about as popular as a power outage. Every day seems to bring at least one move he makes — or doesn’t make — that sends Sox fans into a tizzy, and not the good kind. Wait, is there a good kind of tizzy? Never mind.

The point is, Sox fans look at La Russa like the manager of the all-you-can-eat buffet looks at your cousin Earl, who hasn’t been able to buckle his overalls since the Carter administration.

In this week’s “Polling Place” — your home for Sun-Times sports polls on Twitter — we asked voters how much they trust the Hall of Fame skipper. The results were … yikes.

“I wouldn’t trust Tony La Russa to manage a T-ball team at this point,” @MJA773 commented.

We also asked which league has the best postseason among the NBA, NHL, NFL and — last and least, apparently — MLB. And we asked which of the four remaining teams in the NBA playoffs will win it all. On to the polls:

Poll No. 1: Fill in the blank: I ____ trust Tony La Russa’s managing of the White Sox.

Upshot: Did we mention the whole Hall of Fame thing? Still not impressed? We’re sure it’s nothing a simple 10- or 15-game winning streak can’t fix. An interesting question, though, was raised by @RonaldVoigt: “Would Tony be getting the same level of criticism if he were 58 instead of 78?” Something to think about.

Poll No. 2: Which league has the best postseason?

Upshot: Saying the Stanley Cup playoffs are the best is one thing. Watching the Stanley Cup playoffs like they’re the best is another. Ratings are way up with games on ESPN and TNT, but the NHL still lags far behind in the eyeballs-on-screens department. By the way: The voters aren’t wrong; the more you watch it, the more you realize postseason pucks is basically a nonstop thrill ride. No extra charge for that inside info.

Poll No. 3: Who will win the NBA title?

Upshot: “The Warriors seem to have the hot hand,” @JeffreyCanalia wrote. Come to think of it, it does seem like this Steph Curry fellow has gotten kind of good at putting the ball in the basket. Who knew? Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins aren’t so untalented themselves. Good team. Scary team. A title team? Our voters sure are feeling it.

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