Tommy Lasorda: 80 and still shoveling bullsh*t

Oh my god does this thread do my heart good.

In the early 90s, when I was a fledging young sportswriter, I could do the infrequent gamer of the MLB team located about 90 minutes away from the small town daily where I worked.

After pitching around the home team's MVP candidate slugger three times, the Dodgers pitched to him with the game on the line in the 8th and he crushed a game-winning home run. I wasn't really planning on asking any questions in the gaggle after the game, but nobody asked him about the pivotal decision to pitch to the slugger with the game on the line. So, I -- not understanding at the time that Lasorda had been dogged for years by his decision to pitch to Jack Clark with a base open in Game 6 of the 1985 NLCS -- asked.

And then, the lovable, grandfatherly goodwill ambassador of baseball that I had grown up seeing on Saturday morning kids' television, unleashed a venomous, profane, belittling tirade on me that still makes my cheeks burn a little when I think about. Prick. My only consolation was seeing the next day that all the big city reporters standing there with me ended up using the (edited) quotes that my question had solicited.

But so many non-sportswriters still view him as the jolly elf, that they invariably don't understand when I label him the biggest jerk I've met in sports.

 

Ben Sheets' assessment of Lasorda at the 2000 Olympics:

He'd cheer the first three innings, sleep for the next three innings and manage the last three innings.

 

You learned a very important lesson. Tommy blew up at you because you weren't a regular. LaRussa is famous for doing that now.
You did your job. Got cussed out. Goes with the territory.

 

Ruined a lotta arms.

But what the hell -- they were getting paid, right?

 

That's cowardice by Tommy.

 

It makes for a good story now and I understand that, in a way, Lasorda and I were both playing roles. Though I will admit that the moment when he pinched my credential between his fingers, examined it like it was a piece of dog shit, and then sneered "Never heard of you" was hard not to take personally.

What really has stayed with me from that incident is the way the other, more experienced journos there hung me out to dry -- laughing as Tommy ripped me a new one, buddying up to him afterward as if to show him that they and he were on the same side and that I was some nobody who didn't belong, and then using selections from his tirade as their lede quotes the next day.

 

I've been in attendance for many of his tirades ... including Kingman, which was the first MLB game I ever covered, on Mother's Day, and I wasn't sure something unusual had just happened.
I'm not sure Lasorda was the innovator of the "blumpkin." But I do know there is a sports writer, who has worked on both coasts and currently is in the midwest, whose nickname is Blumpy. I thought he was the one who originated it.

 

Naw he didn't. A blumpkin is truly a cheap thrill. At 80, Tommy had better watch out. He could go into cardiac arrest.

 

Met Tommy once - sort of. He was the speaker at an awards banquet I covered. Later we went to Shoney's after work for some carboloading and who walks in but Mr. Dodger himself. Went over, introduced myself, said hello, GTFO.
Other than that, haven't heard too many good words uttered about the man. Love the whole holier than thou, calling up hookers thing. Nice touch, Tommy, nice touch.
But, then again, OJ was nice to me, too. And he's a fucking murderer.

 

Now THAT'S a police report your family doesn't want to read

 

Tommy is football's Sapp, a guy the ordinary fantasy-playing schlub thinks loves interacting with the fans. Both are as cuddly as a cactus.

You can't call him a cranky old man. He's been this way for 30 years.

I remember seeing "baseball's great ambassador" on that ESPN commercial last fall telling the Cubs fan to get down from the tree. That one was a hoot, and for all the wrong reasons.

One wishes the foul ball during the All-Star Game several years ago made impact.

 

The first time that happened to me was a shock, too. Although I shouldn't have been surprised.
I hope it had the same effect on you that it did on me, which was to swear to myself, when I was in their shoes, that I would never do the same thing to a newbie.

I happened to be in L.A. when the double-whammy of all Lasorda days happened: Frank Sinatra died, and Mike Piazza got traded.

What I should have done (it was my first year on the beat) was just follow him around all day and write about it. It would have been hysterical.
Of course, I didn't think of it then.
He said his phone had started ringing at 6 a.m. about fellow Italian, ol' Blue Eyes, and about his godson. Showed up at Dodger Stadium, more clusterf...g. He was absolutely in his blowhard-full-of-shit-his-eyes-were-brown element.

Really something to see.