Former Dodgers manager Lasorda dies
LOS ANGELES ( AP) — Growing more and more frail, Tommy Lasorda looked on from a suite at Globe Life Field in Texas, watching as the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the World Series in Game 6 against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Surrounded by family and friends, Lasorda celebrated the team’s first championship in 32 years that October evening amid the coronavirus pandemic. While his mobility was slowed, his mind was still sharp.
Fittingly, it was the last game he ever attended.
“He always said he wanted 2 things, to live to be 100 and to see another championship brought to the city of LA,” Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner tweeted. “Although he fought like hell to hit triple digits, I couldn’t be more proud to know he got to see the Dodgers on top again, where he knew we belonged.”
The Hall of Fame manager who was true blue to the Dodgers for more than seven decades died Thursday night after having a heart attack at his home in Fullerton, California, the team said Friday. Lasorda was 93. He had just returned home Tuesday after being hospitalized since Nov. 8 with heart issues.
Lasorda had been the oldest living baseball Hall of Famer — that distinction now belongs to Willie Mays, who turns 90 in May.
Flags at Dodger Stadium were being lowered to half- staff and Lasorda’s No. 2 was painted in the outfield. A jersey with his number hung in the dugout and fans showed up with flowers, candles and Dodgers memorabilia at the ballpark.
Lasorda had a history of heart problems, including a heart attack in 1996 that hastened the end of his managerial career and another in 2012 that required him to have a pacemaker.
“It feels appropriate that in his final months, he saw his beloved Dodgers win the World Series for the first time since his 1988 team,” commissioner Rob Manfred said. Lasorda spent 71 years in the Dodgers organization, starting as a player when the team was still based in Brooklyn. He later coached and then became its best- known manager for 21 years in Los Angeles, leading the franchise to two World Series championships. After stepping down in 1996, he became an ambassador for the sport he loved.
Alternately fiery, comforting, profane and full of flair, Lasorda used to say, “I bleed Dodger blue.”
Lasorda was a master motivator among his players, always knowing just the right amount of confidence or candor required to induce stellar performances.
“He believed all that stuff that he said, he really did,” said former Dodgers second baseman Steve Sax, who played on both of Lasorda’s championship teams and was a five- time All- Star. “He really believed that you were better if you wore a Dodger uniform. He was all in. And because he believed it, we did, too.”
Lasorda served as special adviser to team owner and chairman Mark Walter for the last 14 years, and maintained a frequent presence at games sitting in Walter’s box. “In a franchise that has celebrated such great legends of the game, no one who wore the uniform embodied the Dodger spirit as much as Tommy Lasorda,” said Stan Kasten, team president and CEO.
Lasorda compiled a 1,599- 1,439 record as manager from 1977- 96. He won World Series titles in 1981 and ‘ 88, four National League pennants and eight division titles as the skipper.
Lasorda kept a bronze plaque on his desk reading: “Dodger Stadium was his address, but every ballpark was his home.”
He was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1997 as a manager. He guided the U. S. to a baseball gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Lasorda was the franchise’s longesttenured active employee since Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully retired in 2016 after 67 years.
“There are two things about Tommy I will always remember,” Scully said. “The first is his boundless enthusiasm. Tommy would get up in the morning full of beans and maintain that as long as he was with anybody else. The other was his determination. He was a fellow with limited ability and he pushed himself to be a very good Triple- A pitcher. He never quite had that something extra that makes a major leaguer, but it wasn’t because he didn’t try.”
As a pitcher, Lasorda had a limited career at the major league level, going 0- 4 with a 6.48 ERA and 13 strikeouts from 1954- 56.
He made only one start for the Dodgers — in 1955, the only year they won the crown while in Brooklyn, he threw three wild pitches against the Cardinals and was pulled after the first inning.
Overall, he pitched eight games for the Dodgers and compiled a 7.62 ERA.
Who would’ve ever guessed then that he would wind up meaning so much to the franchise?
Born Thomas Charles Lasorda on Sept. 22, 1927, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, his pro career began when he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies as an undrafted free agent in 1945. He missed the 1946 and ‘ 47 seasons while serving in the Army.
Lasorda returned in 1948 and once struck out 25 in a 15- inning game. In his next two starts, he struck out 15 and 13, gaining the attention of the Dodgers, who drafted him from the Phillies. He played in Panama and Cuba before making his major league debut on Aug. 5, 1954, for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Although he didn’t play in the 1955 World Series, he won a ring as a member of the team.
Lasorda pitched for the Dodgers for two seasons but lost his roster spot when Brooklyn had to make room for another lefty — young Sandy Koufax.
The Kansas City Athletics bought Lasorda’s contract and was traded to the Yankees in during the 1956 season. Sent down to the Triple- A Denver Bears, he was sold back to the Dodgers in 1957.