As Time Goes By, Dodgers Look to the Future : Lasorda Appears to Be in Line for Campanis’ Job

The 1987 season will find the Dodgers prepared to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Dodger Stadium, the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s major league debut and the 60th anniversary of Tom Lasorda’s birth.

Now baseball’s senior manager in point of continuous service, Lasorda is embarking on the second year of a three-year contract often speculated to be his last as the club’s manager.

It has been assumed that he will eventually replace close friend Al Campanis as the director of player personnel.

Recent events have fueled the speculation by leaving the impression that the old guard is changing, that the Dodgers have taken a closer look at the calendar.

--Longtime minor league director Bill Schweppe, 73, announced he would retire at the end of the season.

--A series of changes in the farm system’s instructional and managerial staff served to elevate younger personnel.

Campanis is 70.

Is it obvious now that the expiration of Lasorda’s managerial contract at the end of the 1988 season will prompt the speculated change?

Is it possible that a change would be made after the 1987 season if the Dodgers were to win the National League’s Western Division title, providing a heady atmosphere in which to make the transition?

Only two things are clear.

--Though he has been given an indication by the organization, according to sources, that he will have a lifetime job as a consultant, Campanis has no desire to step down, out or sideways.

Would a pennant or World Series championship alter his thinking?

“Hell no,” he said. “It would rejuvenate me that much more.”

--Club President Peter O’Malley continues to weigh the future structure and seems determined to have Lasorda be a part of it.

“I’ve thought about all kinds of possibilities and combinations,” he said, “and Tommy figures today, tomorrow and the day after that in all of our plans. At the right time, it will all work out very well.”

Said Lasorda:

“I’d love to be the general manager. I’ve said that before. I feel that when the time comes that Peter O’Malley needs me to do something else or no longer feels I can do the job I’m now doing, he’ll make that change.

“The one thing I know is that I want to remain with the Dodgers for the rest of my life. I also know that I’ll never put anything ahead of my job as manager.

“I love it as much as I did 10 years ago and I want to win as much as I did 10 years ago.”

Predecessor Walter Alston had received 23 one-year contracts to manage the Dodgers.

Lasorda had received nine before getting the three-year contract that seemed a response to multi-year offers from the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves to become both manager and general manager for those organizations.

“People say it’s a lot of bull when I talk about Dodger blue and the big Dodger in the sky,” Lasorda said, “but there’s nothing that shows how I feel about the Dodgers more than the fact that I’ve had chances to leave for more money and better positions and haven’t done it and never want to.”

Said O’Malley:

“Tommy knows where he stands with us and he stands very high. He’s a very talented man who could go a lot of different directions in baseball and sports. I wouldn’t rule out any possibilities.

“I’m positive he’ll have bigger and better opportunities in the future.”

Is that future tied to a sweeping Dodger youth movement?

O’Malley said he had no problems with the performance of Schweppe, Campanis and scouting director Ben Wade, 64.

“If something’s not broken,” he said, “you don’t fix it. That doesn’t mean we don’t monitor the age factor, but any evolution is a gradual process. It’s not something you do all at once.”

Said Campanis:

“I look back to when I got this job 19 years ago and realize how immature and unprepared I was. There’s nothing like experience when it comes to constructing and balancing a team, especially now, when the whole business has become so complicated.

“No, I don’t want to retire. I feel vigorous, healthy and mentally capable. You’re only as old as you feel. My mother is a healthy 91 and they say it’s in the genes. I don’t expect to go to 91, but I do think I’ve got a few more years.

“Of course, it’s up to Peter. If he says it’s time for a change, that’s it. But he hasn’t given me any reason to believe that’s going to happen.”

Some might look at Schweppe’s decision and view it as reason in itself to believe it will happen.

Said Schweppe, however:

“There was no pushing and shoving. There was absolutely no pressure put on me to retire. When you reach my age, it’s a cumulative thing and not a spur of the moment decision.

“I mean, basically it’s the calendar catching up with me. I’ve been 42 years without a break. It’s time to leave while I’m in reasonably good health and comfortably able to do it. I had been thinking about it for a number of years.”

Will it precipitate other changes?

“I think Al and Ben and everyone else will be dealt with individually,” Schweppe said. “The status of a person’s job is determined by events, and the calendar is part of that, but I don’t see any wholesale changes.

“At the same time, every organization has to take stock of its future, and maybe it’s time for a transition. It certainly is for me personally.

“I mean, the history of this organization has been like that of a family, with its stability and continuity. I wouldn’t call the recent changes a youth movement, but there comes a time when change is inevitable.”

The changes Schweppe alluded to may have been even more inevitable because the Dodger farm system suffered a third straight losing season. Of the six Dodger farm teams, only Sarasota and Great Falls, both rookie teams, reached .500.

Stan Wasniak, 66 and the acknowledged king of the minors, retired as manager of the Class-A Vero Beach Dodgers and was replaced by his coach, John Shoemaker, 30.

Ducky LeJohn, 52 and battling poor health in recent years, was made a scout, relinquishing the managerial reins at Class-A Bakersfield to Kevin Kennedy, who had been the Great Falls manager and who, at 32, is considered a possible successor to Lasorda.

Jim Stoeckel, 34 and a former coach at Vero Beach, became the Great Falls manager. Paul Popovich, 46, replaced Guy Wellman, 65, as the organization’s coordinator of instruction. Dave Wallace, 37, replaced Larry Sherry, 51, as the organization’s pitching coach.

The story of the once dominant Dodger farm system has been chronicled.

As for 1986, Schweppe said he still feels it was an “aberration caused by 40 key injuries throughout the system.” He said it had no effect on his own decision to retire.

“I’m proud of the fact that the big club has been out of contention only four or five times since I became minor league director in 1968, and that the farm system has supplied the majority of the players,” he said.

Campanis said he agreed with the aberration theory but felt that over a period of years there had been a slow deterioration in the continuity of instruction throughout the system and that the changes would correct that.

“I feel that we’ve not only improved our level of instruction,” he said, “but that there’s now a common thread and thought, with everyone in the organization wanting to prove we’re not as bad as we were last year.”

Time will tell, of course.

Just as the extent and nature of the Dodgers’ changes will be determined in time.

For Lasorda, who figures to remain with the club in one position or another, the decade as manager has produced a pride born of five division titles, three pennants and one World Series championship. In addition, he said, he now has a greater degree of patience, understanding and knowledge.

Campanis, however, said there are still areas in which Lasorda has to grow. He laughed and said:

“I spoke to a school reunion recently and jested that Tommy wants my job and may get it, but not yet. I just haven’t taught him enough yet.”