When Lasorda Had a Bellyful of Being Chubby

Until this month, calling Tom Lasorda skinny would have been like calling the Queen Mary a skiff. It would have gotten you an emergency appointment with the optometrist. The Dodger skipper, after all, was known as every restaurateur’s fondest dream, linguine’s biggest fan, the emperor of egg roll, the pasha of pizza. Food trembled at his approach.

But skinny? Uh-huh. And Pavarotti’s a jockey.

But wait a second. That guy down there throwing batting practice . . . the one in the Size 35 uniform pants and the 43 regular jacket and the 15 1/2-inch collar. The one without the gut. Could it be?

Believe it. The current temperature in hell is 15 below, and Tom Lasorda does weigh in at a svelte 179 pounds.

Since spring training in February, Lasorda has--with the help of a liquid diet program, the inspiration of a group of nuns and the motivation of a cool $30,000--dropped nearly 40 pounds. He pitches batting practice by the hour, coaches third base with highly physical verve, runs from four to six miles each day and makes stadium crowds shake their heads in wonder.

“I tell you, I was really surprised,” said Greg Creighton, a South Pasadena resident who watched Lasorda from his seat at Dodger Stadium one night last week. “I was pleased to see that he had the control to do it.”

“I think it’s great,” said Nancy Tabak of Buena Park. “I saw him in a commercial today and he looks really thin. I remember when he used to waddle out there. Now he’ll live longer. He’s got a California team and now he’s got a California body.”

Jim Lundstrom of Mission Hills said that he, too, was “surprised, but more than that I’m proud because he’s a very public person and it’s a good example for our community that he can do something like that, with or without the bet with Hershiser and Gibson.”

Only don’t call it a bet, Lasorda says.

“Not a bet,” he said. “We don’t bet. It’s a challenge.”

The gauntlet was flung, Lasorda said, in his office during spring training, as pitcher Orel Hershiser and left fielder Kirk Gibson witnessed the regular pasta ritual.

“I’m in my office eating,” Lasorda said. “This family used to bring me this linguine every other day. One day it would be linguine with marinara sauce, the other day it would be linguine with broccoli, which I love. Big pot of it. I’d bring my coaches in and we’d eat it. I was on my third plate when Hershiser and Gibson started saying to me, ‘You gotta lose weight; you’re getting too heavy.’ They were really concerned with me. And I said, ‘Hey, I can lose weight any time I want.’ Which is a lie. So they say, ‘We’ll issue you a challenge: You lose 20 pounds by the All-Star break in July and we’ll give you $10,000 apiece for charity.’

“And right away, boom, I thought about the nuns.”

The Sisters of Mercy of Nashville, Tenn., were about to get a champion. Prior to spring training, a friend from Nashville told Lasorda about several elderly nuns, belonging to the order of the Sisters of Mercy, who were “living in a house that is very close to being condemned,” Lasorda said. The Dodger manager suggested that a dinner be organized in November to raise money for a new convent. He would speak at the dinner, he said, and bring along several autographed baseballs to auction off.

“Then,” he said, “I went back to spring training and forgot about it.”

Until the offer from Hershiser and Gibson. And when Hershiser sweetened the pot, Lasorda became galvanized.

“About four days later,” Lasorda said, “Hershiser comes by and says, ‘I don’t think you can do it, but, if you lose eight more, I’ll give you another $10,000.’ I made up my mind that I was really gonna do it.”

Hershiser said that he and Gibson already had earmarked the money for charity. But the sight of Lasorda wolfing all that linguine--and protesting to them that he felt just fine in his zeppelin-like state--presented them with a novel way to put the money to work.

“We started challenging him as to his character,” Hershiser said, and calling his protests “a lot of hot air.”

“He said, ‘Give me some incentive,’ ” Hershiser said. “So we started negotiating on money, about how much.”

The penalty for failure, he said, would be “public embarrassment. But if there’s one thing that motivates Tommy, it’s to win championships or to do something in the public eye.”

When the diet became public knowledge, representatives from ULTRA Slim-Fast, a liquid diet program, approached Lasorda and offered to put him on the program. They also offered to kick in another $20,000 for the new convent, Lasorda said. He accepted and since then has been drinking an ULTRA Slim-Fast shake for breakfast and lunch and eating a low-calorie dinner of solid food. He said it has worked perfectly.

“Before when I tried to lose weight, I’d go all day without eating,” Lasorda said, “and by nighttime I wanted to eat the table, the tablecloth, the flowers, everything. Now I maintain my energy level and by nighttime I’m not famished.”

And he is thin enough now that about 3 p.m., before most of the players are even at the ballpark, he can pull on a pair of jogging pants and run around the Dodger Stadium warming track. And around. And around.

And now, when Linguine Hour arrives in the clubhouse, Lasorda parcels the goodies out to the players and coaches and sticks to the lean stuff.

Hershiser Had His Doubts

“I didn’t think he could do it, initially,” Hershiser said. “Not at all. I didn’t think he had a chance. I thought it would be a New Year’s resolution kind of thing.”

Six months ago, all this might have been enough to upset the very balance of nature. A skinny Lasorda? It could have thrown off the rotation of the Earth. It would have been as implausible as Santa Claus in an Armani suit.

Will the world be the same with a 179-pound Lasorda in it?

“I’ve thought about that same thing,” Dodger bullpen coach Mark Cresse said. “The thing that’s made him so distinguishable is gone. When everybody thought of Tom Lasorda, they thought of the chubby Italian. In the past, the players thought of him the same way, but now they’re proud of him for being able to do it.”

So, apparently, are the fans.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Sue Lambert of Pasadena said. “I wish I could do that. I like the new Lasorda.”

‘Didn’t Think He Could Do It’

“He looks pretty good,” Bob Hanseen said, waiting in line at a Dodger Stadium concession stand. “I didn’t think he could do it. He likes to eat so well. He won’t be the same Lasorda he was because I think (people) kind of related to that fat belly of his when he’d go out to the pitcher’s mound. But if they win ball games, it’ll be all right.”

Charles Terry of Arcadia said he “thought all along he should do that. I think if you expect your players to be in shape you should set an example. I think it’s good for the morale of the team. It looked bad to the players to see him wobbling around out there. If you’re thin, they’ll be thin.”

Which is exactly what’s going on in the Dodger clubhouse.

“When we go on the road,” Cresse said, “we’re kind of like a fraternity. And when we were together with Tom in the past, it was like everybody wanted to try to feed him. When you went out with Tommy it was like he wouldn’t let you stop eating. When Tommy ate, everybody had to eat. We all got kind of plump together.

“On the other hand, now when he’s trying to lose weight, we’re going along with him.”

No Clubhouse Snacking

Cresse said many of the players have given up snacking in the clubhouse and have taken to drinking ULTRA Slim-Fast shakes instead. He himself has lost 17 pounds on the program, pitching coach Ron Perranoski has lost 21 and catcher Mike Scioscia, who said he has fought a running battle with weight throughout his career, has lost 11.

And, coach Bill Russell said, Lasorda has led the way with equanimity.

“I’d seen him on diets before,” Russell said, “and I didn’t think I could stand to be around him, being miserable and irritable all the time and hungry and missing his linguine and hamburgers and all the other things he used to eat. But he’s not cranky. He feels good about himself and everybody tells him how good he looks.”

Also, Hershiser said, the new, improved Lasorda has earned his right to lord it over the pudgy whom he wants to goad into shedding a few pounds.

“He’s given himself a lot of ammo to embarrass people,” Hershiser said. “He’s become the local guru on weight loss.”

Could it be possible, however, that a few die-hards would like the old Lasorda back, would miss the exploits of that legendary trencherman of whom it was said that he could strike sparks off a plate with a fork?

“Nooooo,” Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully said. “I don’t think so. He’s the same person, I think. That Falstaffian personality that we always dream about, I don’t know if that applies. I think it’s wonderful to see him like this. I’m delighted for him.”

“We’ll definitely miss the eating jokes,” Greg Creighton said, “but you have to take the good with the bad.”

“I think it’s his attitude that makes Tommy Lasorda,” Jim Lundstrom said. “He’s a motivator and people love him. I don’t think they’ll miss the old Lasorda.”

The Old Image

Images of the old Lasorda are still around, of course. His photograph appears on restaurant walls in every National League city in America.

“That was it,” he said. “That was my image. I couldn’t lose weight because everywhere I’d go, someone was wanting to feed me. When the game was over, if we won I was so happy that I ate a lot. And if we lost I was so damn mad that I ate a lot.”

Now, he said, when he enters a restaurant for a meal (he now eats more regularly, albeit frugally), the patrons may break into spontaneous applause. And, Cresse said, “when everybody else is sleeping on the airplane at 3 a.m. on a road trip, he’s answering his mail.”

“You can’t believe how many people write me and call me and say, ‘If you can do it, we can do it,’ ” Lasorda said. “It’s unbelievable. I’ve sort of been an inspiration to a lot of people.”

Not the least of whom are the Sisters of Mercy of Nashville, Tenn., who were recently inspired to perform an unusual bit of secular business.

“I went down there the other day to visit the nuns,” Lasorda said. “What a great feeling. I walked into that place and they applauded when I came into the room. They’re all elderly and one of them got up--she was about 75--and led this cheer. It was a cheer about me. It had my name in it.”

A S-K-I-N-N-Y spell-out, perhaps?