MLB: McGwire joins Cards as hitting coach

Mark McGwire is back in baseball, reunited with Tony La Russa as the St. Louis Cardinals' hitting coach.

La Russa agreed to return for a 15th year as manager Monday with a one-year contract, the first time he hasn't had a multiyear deal with the team. All of his coaches will return except for Hal McRae, who will be replaced by the former star.

"Mark is passionate about the game, passionate about the Cardinals," chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said. "Tony thinks he'll be a great coach, and I think he's got a lot to offer."

McGwire was not at the news conference at Busch Stadium, but La Russa and general manager John Mozeliak said there will be no effort to shield McGwire from questions about steroids. The team anticipated a telephone news conference with McGwire.

STEINBRENNER TO ATTEND SERIES: Once he was omnipresent at Yankee Stadium, micromanaging so much that World Series tickets could not be sent out until he revised the seating charts in his office. He raged at his players and celebrated them with equal gusto.

Now George Steinbrenner is 79 and frail. Still the owner but no longer the leader of his beloved Yankees, he saw just three regular-season games this season.

But he's coming back to New York just for the Series.

"We're trying to do this for pops, Mr. Steinbrenner," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

George Steinbrenner was missing from the bubbly fueled celebration in the well-appointed clubhouse of the new Yankee Stadium on Sunday night, after the Yankees captured their first American League pennant in six years. He preferred to watch from home in Tampa, Fla.

But he was very much talked about.

His deeds were praised. Toasts were made in his honor.

"It means a tremendous amount to him," son Hank Steinbrenner said Monday. "And then winning the World Series would mean a tremendous amount to him."

Billions of dollars were spent to assemble baseball's priciest collection of talent, and they came from Steinbrenner's bank accounts. After erecting the fanciest ballpark ever seen, at a cost of $1.5 billion, it could even be said that he laid the very foundation for the franchise's latest restoration.

Yet he's been more an absence than a presence at the new stadium, visiting from Florida only for opening day, a 10-2 loss to Cleveland. The other games he saw were in Tampa.