Farewell to an L. A. legend
Tommy Lasorda, 93, managed with his gut and brought Dodgers joy,
LOS ANGELES— Tommy Lasorda, who in 20 years as the Los Angeles Dodgers manager won two World Series championships, four National League pennants and eight division titles and always insisted that he bled Dodger blue out of loyalty to the organization, has died at age 93.
The vibrant and voluble Lasorda spent 71 seasons with the Dodgers and was among the few remaining links to the club’s Brooklyn roots. In and out of the hospital in recent years for heart, back and shoulder problems, Lasorda died of a heart attack Thursday night, according to the Dodgers.
Afriend to presidents and Little Leaguers, a devout Catholic with a talent for rapid- fire profanity, a self- promoter who tirelessly raised funds for convents and disaster victims through banquets and speeches, Lasorda spanned several eras in baseball and — along with Vin Scully and Sandy Koufax — achieved near- mythical status among loyal Dodger fans.
Said Dodger president and CEO Stan Kasten: “Tommy is quite simply irreplaceable and unforgettable.”
He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the veterans committee in 1997, his first year of eligibility, and the Dodgers later retired his uniform No. 2. Four years after he retired as a major- league manager, he guided the lightly regarded U. S. Olympic baseball team to a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Games. He retained the title of special adviser to the Dodgers’ chairman, most recently reporting directly to owner and chairman Mark Walter. His last known public appearance was at Game 6 of the 2020 World Series in Arlington, Texas, where he saw the team he guided for so many years finally win another title.
As a player, Lasorda was a fearless but unpolished lefthanded pitcher who was demoted to the minor leagues when the Dodgers needed to open a roster spot for a promising kid named Koufax. Lasorda went 0- 4 over parts of three seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Kansas City Athletics and spent 14 seasons in the minors before working his way up the Dodgers ladder as a manager.
Lasorda ate with the same gusto that he managed, earning the nickname Tommy Lasagna. Although he famously became apitchman for a weight- loss aid and shed 40 pounds on a dare in 1988, he was instantly recognizable for his rotund figure and the sagging pouches under his eyes.
Despite his 1,599 victories and the Dodgers’ World Series titles in 1981 and 1988, Lasorda was never considered a great innovator or tactician. But he had an unerring gut sense of how to manage players and was, unquestionably, a great motivator. And through seven decades as a player, scout, coach, manager, interim GM and adviser, he remained an unabashed cheerleader.
“No one knows how good a manager he is — it’s an imprecise science — but he was good enough to get in four World Series and he was the best there ever was at taking a bunch of moderately talented kids out of the minor leagues and making them think they were the 1927 Yankees,” Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote in 1990. “No one has yet been able to figure to this day how he got the 1988 team in the World Series, never mind winning it in five games.”
Thomas Charles Lasorda was born Sept. 22, 1927, in the ItalianAmerican section of Norristown, Pa., outside Philadelphia. The second of Carmella and Sabatino Lasorda’s five sons was pugnacious, but as much as he loved fighting, he loved baseball even more. Money was tight, though, and he had to work every summer. He took jobs as a bellhop and laid track for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
He was signed by the Phillies out of Norristown High before the 1945 season. He spent two years in the military and was chosen by the Dodgers in the 1948 draft. Although he thrived in the minors, once recording 25 strikeouts in a Class C game, he couldn’t crack the Dodgers’ strong pitching staff. He made his major- league debut on Aug. 5, 1954, appearing in four games that season and four the next season. His most noteworthy feat was tying a record by unleashing three wild pitches in a single inning.
He was purchased by the Athletics in March 1956 and pitched in the minors until 1960. Lasorda became a scout for the Dodgers in 1961, then in 1965 became a manager in the Dodgers’ minor- league system. In Pocatello, Idaho, and Ogden, Utah, he sold tickets, took tickets and cooked team meals. He’d squirt opposing fans with water guns or stage fights, anything to ignite team spirit.
His antics were entertaining, but he backed them with good results and was promoted to manage at the triple- A level in Spokane from 1969- 71 and Albuquerque in 1972. His teams won five pennants in seven seasons, and 75 players he managed made it to the major leagues.
By the time Lasorda wore a major- league uniform again, this time as a coach, the Dodgers had long before left Brooklyn for Los Angeles. He became the third base coach in 1973 for Walter Alston, the club’s longtime manager. Alston retired on Sept. 29, 1976, after Lasorda had rejected a number of offers from other teams to manage while waiting for Alston to step aside.
The first thing he did in 1977 was move the manager’s office from the cubicle Alston had used to a larger room that could hold a TV set, couches and a post- game buffet.
Jo, his wife of 68 years, survives him, as do their daughter, Laura, and a granddaughter, Emily Tess Goldberg.
In 2017, Lasorda — at the age of 90 — was asked to throw out the first pitch at Dodger Stadium in the World Series opener between the Dodgers and Astros. It marked the first time the team had returned to the fall classic since Lasorda’s squad in 1988. The team returned in 2018 and finally won it all in 2020.
“I wanted to die a Dodger,” he said. “I love the Dodgers so much.”
“I wanted to die a Dodger. I love the
Dodgers so much.” TOMMY LASORDA