The second child of Anthony and Olivia (Cueto) La Russa, Anthony La Russa Jr. was born in Tampa, Florida, on October 4, 1944. His paternal grandparents had emigrated from Sicily and his mother’s family was originally from Spain. The family lived in Ybor City, where La Russa’s parents had met when both were working in a cigar factory. When La Russa was in high school his father got a job driving a delivery truck for a dairy, prompting the family to move to West Tampa.
“Spanish was my first language,” said La Russa, whose mother spoke Spanish and his father both Spanish and Italian. “I had to learn English to go to school. I was raised in a Latin American, Italian American community with a bunch of people who really loved baseball. La Russa has been enshrined in both the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame and the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame.