Tommy Lasorda was born on the first day of autumn, the season that matters most in baseball. Many years later, he would leave a lasting impression in the fall, but that day, in 1927, the Brooklyn Dodgers lost a doubleheader. Lasorda, from Norristown, Pennsylvania, would become a left-handed pitcher for the team, but he would never win for them either.
Like Walter Alston, his predecessor as coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Lasorda appeared only briefly as a major league player. Alston was not hit in an attempt; Lasorda did not win in some matches. Still, they managed the team in an uninterrupted line from 1954 to 1996, combining all six franchises in the franchise before 2020.
“Their strength was the strength of the Dodgers: they knew the minor league system, they knew how players became major league players, they understood the importance of scouts and player development – they knew that from the start,” Fred Claire, the former general manager of the Dodgers, said on Thursday. “Their personalities were different, but their bases were almost identical.”
Until Lasorda’s death at home on Wednesday at the age of 93, he was the senior member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. If there really is a blue Dodger paradise, as he always claimed, he could look at the world and see his old team at the top. He was watching from a stadium suite in Arlington, Texas, when the Dodgers won the World Series last October.
“I think he needed to be there, you know?” Bobby Valentine said on Thursday. “Just as he needed to return from the hospital to be with his wife, so she could say that everything is fine.
Valentine, the former major league coach, was with Lasorda at Globe Life Field; a mutual friend, Warren Lichtenstein, arranged for Lasorda to take a private plane to Texas, with a doctor by his side at all times.
“He didn’t get up – we pushed him in and he sat all the time – but with an out or maybe two outs in the last inning, he got up and watched the game stopped, and when they won he played both hands on your head and said, ‘Oh yes!’ “Valentine said. “That ‘Oh yes’, to anyone who was already close to him, was what he was saying when he was running off the bench after they won: ‘Oh yes, we did it!'”
Lasorda’s teams have won 1,630 games in the major leagues, including the postseason. He guided the Dodgers to seven division titles, four World Series appearances and two championships, in 1981 and 1988. In retirement, he managed the United States baseball team – mostly minor leagues – to gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
With Lasorda, however, games were only part of the story. He was a genuine celebrity, a friend of Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles, who always knew where to find a camera. He could share wisdom like a pointy wizard on a children’s TV show (“The Baseball Bunch”) or spew unholy hilarity to a reporter who dared to ask his opinion on a rival’s performance. Jon Lovitz played him on “Saturday Night Live”.
Lasorda had a thing for pets. In 1989, he ordered the referees to expel Youppi! – a cheerful orange bubble on a Montreal Expos shirt – to bounce noisily on the top of the Dodgers’ bench. A year earlier, he fought Phillie Phanatic for the lawn at Veterans Stadium and defeated him with a plush Dodger doll.
Lasorda and the Phanatic, then played by Dave Raymond, formed a sort of act on a Major League Baseball goodwill trip to Japan in 1979. The manager’s mocking mascot, whose feigned outrage elicited a laugh from fans. But Lasorda took pictures that day in Philadelphia, and an all-time highlight was born.
“Every other time I was interacting with him, he was really doing it with irony, but I knew he was angry because he was using my name and he put together some bad words,” said Raymond on Thursday. “I was kind of confused – ‘I think he is very angry!’ – and when my head almost fell off, I I was very angry. So, for the next few entrances, I put the mannequin on the Phillies bench and was feeding him pizza. At that point, I think, ‘OK, you started.’ “
Years later, when Lasorda spotted an undressed Raymond in a hotel lobby at winter baseball meetings, he welcomed his friends with a step-by-step recap of his fight. It was all part of the show with Lasorda, who always asked Raymond about his father, Tubby, the former football coach at the University of Delaware.
“The biggest sadness – besides his family and close friends and the Dodger family – is for baseball, because Tommy was the best ambassador,” said Raymond. “We no longer have people like Tommy Lasorda or Earl Weaver or Tug McGraw or Jay Johnstone. These types of people seem to have been eliminated. With travel sports and the emphasis on performance, analysis and all that, we are missing out on some of the best parts of baseball, some of the things we would grab as kids. There was a wonderful window frame that personalities like Tommy gave the game. “
Valentine – a colorful character himself – agreed with the idea, but emphasized Lasorda’s role as a visionary who saw far beyond the hills overlooking Dodger Stadium. He taught clinics around the world, learned Spanish and defended players like Fernando Valenzuela, one of Mexico’s first baseball stars, and Hideo Nomo, Japan’s first MLB All-Star.
For Valentine, Lasorda was following the lineage of Branch Rickey, the Dodger Hall of Fame executive and other teams who brought Jackie Robinson to the majors and created a design for the modern agricultural system.
“Tommy carried the baton to do things differently,” said Valentine. “He was an old Italian with old Italian customs, but somehow, with high school, he knew that the world was changing and that baseball needed to change with him.”
Lasorda’s deepest legacy, perhaps, lies in the way he changed the role of the administrator. Although Alston could be distant and sullen, Lasorda was a brazen cheerleader for his players, creating an environment where young players thrived and motivating players as few could.
The 1988 World Series, against the imposing Oakland Athletics, was Lasorda’s masterpiece. The Dodgers stole Game 1 on Kirk Gibson’s homebinding, and pitcher Orel Hershiser dominated the A’s twice. But his other victory, in Game 4, was all of Lasorda, whose patchwork line had less home run together than Jose Canseco of Oakland had alone.
In the pre-NBC game show, Bob Costas praised the release of the Dodgers, but called his lineup “one of the weakest to enter the field for a World Series game”. Lasorda, who was watching at the clubhouse, shook the walls with a stream of complaints.
“Did you hear what Costas said? He said that you are the worst offensive team ever!Said Mickey Hatcher, the third super sub hit, recalling Lasorda’s speech recently. “Oh, man, he was messing with this. And, of course, when we were on the bench, players screamed and Costas didn’t know what the hell was going on. But Tommy continued to feed everyone. “
Costas ended the show before the game in his place on the grass side of the first base, near the visitors’ bench. He remained on the pitch for the national anthem, having no idea that Lasorda had seen his analysis, let alone used it to gather the Dodgers.
“I am standing next to Hershiser, who is at the end of the line with his cap over his heart during the hymn,” said Costas recently. “And he looked over his shoulder and out of the corner of his mouth said, ‘Boy, did Tommy really get the guys to go over what you said.’ And I’m surprised, like, ‘What the hell is he talking about?’
“So they won, and Lasorda made a big fuss after that on TV with Marv Albert. And the whole time he’s winking at me! “
The Dodgers ran the bases with abandon that night, tracing runs on a past ball, a mistake and two outings. They won the title a game later and, when they finally recovered it, their biggest fan was there.
“What mattered about Tommy, more than anything, was his passion and love for the game,” said Claire. “It’s what moved him, it’s what allowed him to play professional baseball to begin with, it’s what he had when he was young and it’s what he never lost.”