I’ve been a Dodger fan since I was old enough to turn the knobs on my multi-band radio which I kept next to my childhood bed in Visalia, CA. Visalia is located between Fresno and Bakersfield in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Fresno to the north had a Class A farm team of the San Francisco Giants and Bakersfield to the south had a Class A farm team of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
From the first time that I heard legendary Dodger announcer Vin Scully amidst the crackle of competing wavelengths on KFI-640 Los Angeles, I was hooked on the Dodgers. Nothing my father could do could convince me to be a Giants fan even though my family and most of my friends were Giants fans.
There was something special about the Dodgers. Ironically, I saw my first major league baseball game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. My Dad managed to get scalpers tickets to sit out in the Center Field bleachers about as far away from home plate as you could get. The bleachers were wooden planked bench seats just in front of the hand operated scoreboard.
The starting pitchers that day were Juan Marichal for the Giants and Don Drysdale for the Dodgers, both future Hall of Famers. Barry Bonds’ Dad Bobby was the right fielder for the Giants and another Hall of Famer, Willie Mays was in Center Field. The Dodger shortstop was a speedster named Maurie Wills. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was 9-10 years old and brought my glove with me just in case someone hit a home run right at me.
Players came and went, but Dodger managers didn’t change very often. When I went to that game in San Francisco, Walter Alston was the manager. Mr. Alston managed the Dodgers for 23 years. Each year on a one year contract which he insisted on. He felt that he needed to earn the privilege of managing the team the following year.
A guy by the name of Tommy Lasorda, the son of an Italian coal miner from Norristown, PA took over the Dodgers managerial duties in 1976. He managed the Dodgers from 1976-1996.
That included the iconic Game 1 of the 1988 World Series that ended on a walk off home run by Kirk Gibson who did not play in the series due to an injury to the ankle of his left leg and the knee of his right leg. But he managed to come up in the bottom of the Ninth Inning with two outs, a runner on and trailing 4-3 to the powerhouse Oakland Athletics featuring The Bash Brothers. I was watching the game with a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer from the Fort George Hotel in Belize City, Belize. I was under the influence one or two too many Belikins, but I was coherent enough to know what I had just witnessed. The two Dodger fans in Belize that night went home happy.
The guy that managed that underdog Dodger team and nineteen others was Thomas Charles Lasorda. Tommy Lasorda passed away on Thursday evening at the age of 93. He spent 71 years in the Dodger organization as a pitcher, scout, coach, minor league manager, major league manager and consultant. He always said that if you cut him, he would bleed Dodger Blue. Dodger Blue faded a couple notches with the loss of Tommy Lasorda.
The photo gallery above gleaned from the internet will help you to know who Tommy Lasorda was.
Oh, and how could we celebrate Tommy without a few of his priceless quotes. Enjoy.
It was always fun to watch him blow kisses to Giants fans @ Candlestick (to a resounding chorus of “boos.”)
I can picture that! How are you doing? Recovering from surgery? Back at school? I verified that Cabrillo was back live by stopping to chat with one of the kids from my last class on my way home from a bike ride this afternoon.
I remember Lasorda running onto the field, after Gibson hit that home run. It was a great call to send Gibson to pinch hit.
I met Lasorda once, at, of all places, Wrigley Field on the North Side of Chicago. My high school men’s chamber group had been invited to sing the National Anthem in the Friendly Confines. Must’ve been the Spring of ‘82. Before we warmed up, we found our seats. A couple of us recognized Lasorda, in a nice suit, hanging around in the area behind Home Plate and Third Base.
Oddly, the Dodgers weren’t playing the Cubs that day, so we figured he was trying to size up aspects of the Cubs’ bullpen before the rest of the team arrived a couple days later. He was nice— an old-school nice gentleman baseball player. We talked briefly, and several of us even got his autograph. I still have that somewhere…. To have met a great of the game in a park where Ball was meant to be played—on real grass—on a long, lazy late Spring or Summer day was just perfect.
And another little bit of my long-ago youth passes into good memory. You will be missed, Tommy. Whatever your detractors may have said about you, you were a class act, and I shall miss you. Requiescat in pace.
That is so cool. You’ve verified for me how good a person that he was as well.
Thanks
I too fondly remember those kisses he blew to us Giants fans – he was a great part of a wonderful baseball tradition. Thanks for sharing these memories Bruce. Go Giants!
Marna
Bruce, I imagine Tommy is up in heaven trying to organize a game with all the Dodger greats right now. Also remember Lasorda took a bunch of college players to an Olympic Gold Medal.
I’d forgotten that until I listened to a view tributes and found photos of him in the Olympic uniform. Gotta figure out now how to brighten that Dodger Blue again without “2.”
Bruce, what a wonderful tribute to Tommy and the Dodgers!