Tony La Russa's Wife: Huge Metalhead?

Jan 9, 2013 at 7:05 am
Don't Fear the Reaper? Not metal.
Don't Fear the Reaper? Not metal.

Lita Ford, Doro Pesch, Elaine LaRussa. Names that come to mind when thinking of the top heavy metal babes of all time? Not exactly, but it seems the wife of the man who led this city's baseball team to two World Series championships may prefer the mosh pit over the dugout herself.

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Singer and guitarist Robb Flynn of the metal band Machine Head posted in a blog on the band's official website yesterday about an encounter he had with La Russa in a supermarket.

I'm walking through Whole Foods in Walnut Creek talking on the phone to my friend Tom when a lady and her daughter approach me wide-eyed. "Are you fucking Robb Flynn?!" ... "I could be..." They scream with delight and make a big ol' to-do, "oh my god, we're huge fans, I love 'The Blackening', I'm Tony La Russa's wife!"

At first I thought this was just Flynn misinterpreting the events to make him sound super-cool to his fans. I myself once met Al Jourgensen from the band Ministry, completely at random while on tour in Utah. His girlfriend made fun of my band's name, which became a story that my bandmates quickly upgraded to "Al Jourgensen's girlfriend is a fan of my band!" Now, I know full well she did not, in fact like my shitty band -- this lady was hanging out with Uncle Al. She's got taste. But it definitely made the run-in sound way cooler.

Embellishment doesn't seem to be the case for Flynn, as La Russa later made an appearance at a Machine Head gig at the Warfield in San Francisco, along with her baseball heavyweight husband (I like to think they got in an argument before the show; Tony probably wanted to go see a performance of Cats or something instead). According to Flynn this led to an invitation from Tony himself to perform at his annual Animal Rescue Foundation benefit.

It's an anniversary gift for his wife Elaine, who is a raging metalhead... like, bananas for super-random-obscure-euro-metal kind of metalhead. Elaine La Russa is the real deal, folks.

Okay. Let's just say for a minute that she is....