SIMPLE PLEASURE : Managing Should Become Spectator Sport as Soon as the Stars Come Out Tonight

Tom Lasorda’s considerable antacid supply should finally go untouched this evening as he trades his struggling Dodgers for the National League All-Stars.

As managerial duties go, Lasorda needs only to spell the names right on the lineup card and that should about do it for him tonight. This is a job, according to those familiar with the game, that requires little more than legible penmanship and a freshly laundered uniform.

“A privilege and an honor to be the manager,” Lasorda said.

Sure it is, but by all accounts it’s also a simple assignment that features a modicum amount of strategy and a maximum amount of diplomacy. Lasorda and his American League counterpart, Tony La Russa of the Oakland Athletics, admitted that much during Monday’s All-Star workout.

“The knack is to make it minimal managing,” La Russa said. “You’re here to let the players show their abilities . . . and you don’t want to get in their way.”

To this end, La Russa and Lasorda have promised to keep their hands off the game except for the necessary substitutions and occasional strategy moves. Otherwise, they plan on spending the evening as uniformed spectators, traffic cops for their respective 28-man rosters.

“You may have one or two calls about a pitching decision or something as far as offense, but basically it’s a game for the players,” La Russa said.

You’ll get no argument from the players, who consider the managers sort of glorified gatekeepers. Can the managers make the difference?

“Not unless he just completely makes a mockery of things,” said Cleveland Indian reliever Doug Jones.

Said Boston’s Wade Boggs: “I don’t think it comes down to a strategy maneuver thing.”

Better to follow the advice of Minnesota Twin Kirby Puckett who said a manager might want to just “put the guys on the field and let them go.”

Actually, depending on the speaker, La Russa or Lasorda, the difficult part of the managing job is complete--namely, selecting the reserves and pitchers. La Russa relished the duty whereas Lasorda, who is making his fourth appearance as the NL manager, fretted about hurt feelings and unfulfilled contract incentives.

Consider what was at stake: 33 of the All-Stars earned $847,500 in bonuses. Devon White of the Angels received $25,000 in incentives when La Russa named him to the AL team. Houston Astro pitcher Mike Scott is due for a $25,000 bonus and a $25,000 increase in his base salary for the next two years because he was selected.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’d appreciate it if the fans voted for all the players,” Lasorda said. “A lot of players resent the fact that they’re losing out on that bonus.”

How would he feel about an expanded All-Star roster, say, from 28 to 30?

“You can move it up to 50 and there’d still be guys who would be complaining they should be on (the team),” Lasorda said.

So concerned is Lasorda about ill will among those NL players not chosen, that he plans to send letters of explanation to each near-selectee. It is about the most pressing job he’ll have now that his roster is complete.

Meanwhile, La Russa considered the selection of the non-starters his most important duty. Let the fans choose the starting nine, he said, but let the manager do something .

“Being able to write down names of the great American League stars, trying to look and see who’s doing what this year . . . I enjoyed it a great deal,” he said. “The bottom line is that I never knew one contract, so I don’t know who won or lost money because of selections.”

La Russa had fun with his starting lineup, going so far to place Bo Jackson, usually relegated to a power-hitting position in the Kansas City Royal lineup, to the AL leadoff spot. He stuck A’s slugger Mark McGwire in the No. 8 spot as “a second cleanup hitter.” With that done, La Russa now sits back and enjoys the scenery.

If there is such a thing as an All-Star managerial dilemma it will likely come in the later innings, when La Russa and Lasorda must tinker with the lineups without compromising their chances for victory. Tight games are especially tricky.

In the 1979 All-Star game in Seattle, Lasorda decided to keep Astro pitcher Joe Niekro in reserve, just in case the game ran beyond regulation. It didn’t and Lasorda was branded a spoil sport by Houston fans for not inserting Niekro into the lineup.

A year earlier in San Diego, Lasorda pulled reliever Bruce Sutter with two outs in the ninth in favor of Atlanta’s Phil Niekro, who had never appeared in an All-Star game.

“That year I made everyone in Atlanta happy because I let Niekro pitch to one guy,” he said.