Dodgers Fall Flat in the Finale as Lasorda Goes Out Fuming

They went out not with a bang but a simper, with Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda getting tossed before the game’s final out, an outrageous out that sent his team into the playoffs on a losing note. Not that it ruined his appetite or anything. It just mystified him.

“I never used any profanity,” said Lasorda to a highly skeptical group of reporters, while he dug into a steak sandwich. “I don’t understand it.”

Of course, as has been written before, Lasorda’s understanding of profanity is so vague he might very well have approved “Tropic of Cancer” for a Sunday-school text. Still, whatever he said to umpire Harry Wendelstedt cost him the last vision of the regular season: Jay Johnstone belly-flopping into first base. “I heard he was safe, too,” Lasorda said.

If Lasorda didn’t actually see that, he still has plenty to look forward to. His Dodgers, having won the National League West, now prepare for a best-of-seven playoff series with the St. Louis Cardinals, which begins in Dodger Stadium Wednesday. Looking back over Sunday’s game, well, there was plenty to see there, too, besides Johnston’s out.

The Reds won, 6-5, on Dave Parker’s two-out home run off Tom Niedenfuer (7-9) in the ninth inning. But that was only part of the drama of the game. Until Lasorda went belly-to-belly with Wendelstedt, the biggest star turn belonged to Orel Hershiser, who came into the ball game in the sixth inning in search of win No. 20, a number desired by young pitchers for both sentimental and financial reasons. Hershiser is 11-0 in Dodger Stadium, with an ERA of 1.10. So why not get No. 20?

Only thing is, Hershiser got that record in games he started, meaning he didn’t have to overcome any deficits in the sixth inning. This time his team was behind, 4-2, and although he pitched two scoreless innings before coming out for a pinch hitter, he couldn’t get the victory. Afterward he was philosophical, although he knew that the difference between 20-3 and 19-3 was not so much a difference of percentage points as mega-bucks; Hershiser is only signed through this season.

“You’re not going to get me to cry,” he said afterward. Anyway, he said, he expects to end the season at 23-3. “Take a couple out of the playoffs, two more out of the World Seres, that’d be good.” The Dodgers would love to be presented with that kind of record come arbitration, wouldn’t they?

There were other milestones left unturned Sunday. Pedro Guerrero, for example, failed to break Steve Garvey’s record for home runs by a L.A. Dodger. He had fully expected to exceed Garvey’s record of 33 home runs, especially as he had 32 with 17 games left. But he blamed a badly sprained wrist for the failure to hit more than one more in that period. “At least I tied the record,” he said.

Anyway, the real fun was in the ninth inning and who cared about records. After an orgy of pinch-hitting, Lasorda still had players to send up to the plate in the ninth against the Reds’ Ted Power (8-6). With one out, Ken Landreaux singled to center. Enos Cabell hit a long out and then Guerrero, in his last chance for a home run, singled to center. Men on first and third and Lasorda had left-hander Jay Johnstone swinging a bat in the on-deck circle, ready to bat for right-hander Jose Gonzalez. Red Manager Pete Rose, of course, then brought in left-hander John Franco.

And Gonzalez went to the plate.

Rose came out to object and Lasorda sat, smug in his own dugout, knowing that he never acknowledged Johnstone as pinch-hitter. “I was going to let him (Johnstone) hit but then Pete came out and I figured the umpire would tell him I never acknowledged him.” What a fast one he had pulled.

Except the home-plate umpire, Gerry Davis, decided Lasorda had acknowledged Johnstone. “I told him I never acknowledged him and he said, ‘Well, I looked at you long enough.’ ”

Lasorda then debated him and then Wendelstedt came over to settle it. Then those two politely debated and Wendelstedt, acting capriciously by Lasorda’s account, tossed him.

Johnstone subsequently hit a slow grounder into the outfield and was nearly safe, going head-first into first. But no, he wasn’t and the regular season was finally over.

The Dodgers, playoff bound again after the disappointment of 1984, consequently set their guns toward St. Louis, hoping, of course, for more than a belly flop.