The first contact I had with Tommy Lasorda was in 1983 in Philadelphia.
I don’t remember why I was there, what I was expecting to write about, but it was only the second time I had been in a major league press box. It was an uneventful game in an uneventful season, but it contained a very unusual play.
The Dodgers had the bases loaded and two outs. . The batter swung and missed. The pitch was in the dirt and the catcher couldn’t handle it. As the ball squirted away, the batter took off for first.
The runner on third, apparently confused, hesitated. The catcher threw to first hoping to complete the strikeout, but he was too late to get the batter.
One person knew what to do. Philadelphia first baseman Pete Rose took the throw, threw it back to the catcher and yelled, “Step on home plate.”
He did, forcing the runner from third.
After the game, Lasorda grinned and shook his head. “That’s the wonderful thing about baseball,” he said. “No matter how long you’re around the game, you’ll always see something new.”
Tommy Lasorda died yesterday at age 93, and Dodger fans all across the country are mourning. Only legendary broadcaster Vin Scully, who coincidentally is also 93, will be missed more when he dies.
Lasorda loved his team so much that he said he “bled Dodger Blue.”
It was probably a metaphor, but can we really be sure?
The second contact I had with Lasorda was seven years later, when I started covering the Dodgers for the first of two seasons. I covered only home games, but I was out there two or three hours early every time. That was the best time to talk to players for feature stories, or sometimes just stand behind the batting cage and watch batting practice.
Lasorda liked to intimidate young reporters, and I was no exception. I remember in one postgame interview, I managed to win his respect by proving him wrong in one of his aggressive answers. He thought for a minute and then said, “Yeah, you’re right.”
It might have been my finest moment in two years.
He wouldn’t be at the top of the list of great managers I covered, but he’d be close.
I guarantee you nobody ever loved his team more.
He’ll be missed.