They Are Closing the Doors on One of L.A.’s Landmarks

This isn’t the start of a baseball season coming up on us. It’s the end of an era.

Gone forever is a bit of Hollywood. A tearful farewell to the town’s--hell, the world’s --most glamorous gathering spot of superstars, jocks, high rollers, mega-celebrities, close personal friends of everyone, and an alleged organized crime link or two.

That’s right, Tom Lasorda’s office at Dodger Stadium has slammed shut its door to visitors. The famed cinder-block bunker deep beneath the grandstands has fallen victim to Peter Ueberroth’s no-riff-raff rule.

Sorry, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Jr., Michael Jackson, John Robinson, Aaron Spelling, Johnny Carson, Glenn Ford, Perry Como, Tom Bradley, Dinah Shore, Bob Hope ... The era began in 1977, when the Dodgers made Tom Lasorda their manager. The previous manager, Walter Alston, had a tiny office, typical of a baseball manager’s office, sparsely furnished and devoid of decoration. Lasorda knew this would not do. He appropriated a trainer’s room at the other end of the clubhouse.

The room is about the size of a two-car garage. Lasorda had it carpeted Dodger blue, had the walls paneled, got himself a desk with two or three phones, a couch, some chairs, a beer tapper, a couple of refrigerators, a TV. He covered the walls with photos of his friends.

Then he opened the doors and stood aside while Hollywood stormed in.

... Sorry, Don Rickles, Robert Wagner, Lindsay Wagner, Farrah Fawcett, Lee Majors, Ryan O’Neal, Muhammad Ali, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Elliot Gould, David Letterman, Shirley Jones, Bob Newhart, Vic Damone ...

Why did they all come to see Tommy? Why do the great and near-great go anywhere? Word gets out. It’s just something you do, like making it to Swifty Lazar’s post-Academy Awards Ceremony party. Tommy, however, made Swifty look like a tortoise. Tommy has more friends, famous and otherwise.

Of course, Lasorda used gimmicks. He lured ‘em in with the photo gallery, an extensive and priceless collection of rare photographs of famous people standing next to Tommy. Giveaways were big. He handed out an endless supply of baseballs, Dodger shirts, jackets, and enough Dodger trinkets to buy Manhattan Island back from the palefaces.

There were regular entertainment features, such as:

--Tom’s mailbag, in which Lasorda would pull out stacks of fan mail and read two or three humorous letters. Sometimes, he would pick up the phone and answer the letters right before your eyes.

--Phunny phone calls, in which famous people would call Lasorda. He would yell excitedly into the phone for a few minutes, hang up, and say something like, “That was Frank. Now, like I was saying. . . . “

--Soup du jour , and more. Every food story you’ve ever heard about Lasorda’s office is true, and understated. Local restaurants would send him food, sometimes two or three of them would send several full-course dinners on the same night. Lasorda would open desk drawers and pull out cardboard plates of linguine and bags of egg roll.

--Scoop du jour . OK, there weren’t a lot of blockbuster baseball stories that came out of the office, but you could always pick up some Hollywood gossip and anecdotes.

... Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, and Norm Crosby, Lynda Carter, Boom Boom Mancini, Kenny Rogers, Danny Kaye, Harvey Korman, Linda Ronstadt, Ernie--Lasorda calls him Ernie--Borgnine, Jerry Vale, Jonathan Winters ... Some of that fun stuff will still go on, of course. But it won’t be the same without the stars.

“It’s gonna be tough,” Lasorda said from Dodgertown. “A lot of people enjoyed coming to visit my office. I’m gonna be very, very lonely in there.”

All that will remain will be the usual ebb and flow of sportswriters and radio and TV people, Dodger players and execs and trainers.

... Goodby, close personal friends Sammy Davis Jr., Milton Berle, Tony Orlando, Shecky Greene, Buddy Hackett, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shirley Jones. And what about Tom Bosley, Henry Winkler, Ron Howard? Those were happy days ... On an average 10-minute pregame visit to Lasorda’s office you could count on meeting a Michael Caine or a Johnny Mathis. Sometimes there would be two or three Class A superstars. I do not exaggerate when I say I would not have been surprised to walk in and have Tommy yell out, “Hey, c’mere, I want you to meet the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. You’ve heard their albums. And this is Lady Di, a good friend of mine.”

Oh, it wasn’t all stars and glamour. Sometimes, Lasorda would entertain a youth soccer team from Pacoima, or a friend’s kids, or two or three of his old-time baseball buddies from the minor leagues, in which case the scene would resemble “This is Your Life.”

. . . Quoth the Commissioner, “Nevermore,” Burt Reynolds, Sugar Ray Robinson, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, Ed McMahon, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, Magic Johnson, George Allen, Tony LoBianco, Toni Tennille, Red Buttons, Jerry Buss, Gene Barry, Larry Speakes, Andy Granatelli . . . Lasorda’s office will be way too big now. Big and lonely. The stars will be off somewhere else, finding the new spot to be seen. The big office will look like an airplane hangar, an airplane hangar with a beer tapper and couch and refrigerators and TV and framed photos all over the walls.

“I won’t be lonely!” Lasorda shouted over the phone, bucking himself up for that first homestand under Ueberroth’s new no-fun rule. “My office will be the entire stadium ! There will be 50,000 people in my office every night! “

It was the desperate prattling of a lonely man. You could almost hear the echoes.