Lasorda Explains Why He Loves L.A.

The pep talk echoes loudly beyond the ears of those it is intended to motivate.

The deliverer is telling a story about the survivors of a sinking boat who decide to swim to shore. They swim and swim and swim, and, nearing land, one of them gives up.

“He should have just drowned when the boat sank,” the speaker says. “He didn’t swim 95 yards just to quit at the last five.”

For Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, this is the story of the final days of a pennant race. The audience rewarded this speech with division titles six times in Lasorda’s 14 major-league seasons. In 1988 it pulled off one of the biggest upsets in World Series history.

But on a July afternoon in 1990, Lasorda’s arena is the Police Academy swimming pool. His enchanted listeners are a couple of 11-year-olds. And when the 62-year-old Lasorda firmly says, “Let’s go,” they plunge into the water to accompany him on another of his 70 trips down the lap lane.

Lasorda’s Dodgers probably won’t hear this particular pep talk this season. He is swimming laps, but the Dodgers are just treading water in the National League West, eight games behind the Cincinnati Reds.

And he doesn’t quite know what to say to them.

“I think it’s harder to manage because of the players today,” he says. “They have free agency, and they don’t stick around too long. They’re always looking for better deals, and the loyalty to a team doesn’t exist like it used to.

“I mean, when I took over this ballclub, as manager in 1977, 17 of the 25 players had played for me in the minor leagues. Last night there were only two on the field who were signed by the Dodgers, and that was the pitcher (Ramon Martinez) and the catcher (Mike Scioscia).

“If other pitchers are pitching and Rick Dempsey is catching, the whole team -- nine players out there -- none of them were signed by the Dodgers.”

In other words, a guy who bleeds Dodger blue wonders where he would find a compatible donor.

Not that he would need one. Since losing 40 pounds on the liquid diet he now promotes, Lasorda appears healthier than ever. His shirt says, “Please Don’t Feed The Manager.” And in his photo gallery of an office, he hands out fattening candy bars to visitors while munching diet bars himself.

Doctors told him not to run on his battered knee anymore, so he took up swimming in March. Those 70 laps -- 7,000 feet -- last week represented a personal best.

“The guy’s getting younger, not older,” veteran Dodger Mickey Hatcher says. “The guy comes to the park at 1:30, swims 60 laps, answers his fan mail. He’s got all the spunk in the world. If anybody should have a drug test, it’s him. He’s the most unbelievable person I’ve ever seen in my life.

“He looks better than ever, and he even seems to feel better about himself.”

His players still marvel about his positive energy and his fighting spirit. These are the foundations of his unique motivational techniques.

Even with a 1,150-1,005 record, Lasorda won’t be remembered as one of the greatest tactical managers of all time. One of his former players goes so far as to describe him as “the worst tactical manager I’ve ever seen. I just didn’t care for what he did on the field, especially the way he handled the pitching staff. Everybody over there had physical problems.”

Those statements came from a pitcher, who added, “As a person, I liked him.”

Indeed, Lasorda might be remembered as the most beloved manager in baseball. Former A’s outfielder Stan Javier, asked to compare Lasorda with Tony La Russa, doesn’t hesitate.

“The amazing thing about Tommy is that you see him laughing during a game, joking,” Javier said. “That’s different. Tony wouldn’t even smile until the game was over.”

The laughter and the jokes are part of the Lasorda schtick that rings true when the team is going well and resembles cow manure when it’s not. He says someone asked him, “Whitey Herzog quit because he got disgusted. Things hadn’t been going good. Have you ever thought about quitting?”

Measure for yourself the truth/nonsense ratio in Lasorda’s answer:

“I managed eight years in the minor leagues. I spent endless hours riding those buses, trying hard to improve players’ skills, trying to get them to play in the big leagues, and when I used to go to bed at night, say my prayers, I’d say, ‘God, if you can see it in your heart, I’d like to manage in the major leagues.’ Then I went six years to manage in winter ball, away from my family in the wintertime, to try to learn more about my trade, and I say in my prayers, ‘Hey, God, if you can see it in your heart to make me a big-league manager, I hope it’s with the Dodgers.’

“And that dream became a reality. I’m not quitting now and giving it to somebody else. They’ve got to take it from me. I mean, I’m not going to quit. I love my job. I love being around our players. I love the competition. I love to wear this Dodger uniform. I’m the happiest man in the world. Believe me.”

Truth or nonsense? There were rumors earlier this year that Lasorda might change uniforms and manage the New York Mets next year. Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley called him into his office on June 3 and asked, “Do you still love managing?”

When Lasorda replied, “Of course I do,” O’Malley signed him to a two-year contract extension through 1992. The Dodgers haven’t fired a manager in 36 years, so now Lasorda directs his pep talks to his own heart, urging it through the final five yards.

It’s not easy this year. Lasorda doesn’t like this team much.

“No, I don’t like it the way it is now, no,” he said. “I think we have to ... I think we need Bulldog Hershiser back. I think we need Kirk Gibson playing all season. I think we need a healthy Kal Daniels.”

Orel Hershiser underwent surgery April 27 and is out for the season. Gibson has been hurt for much of the last two seasons and has requested a trade. Daniels’ knees trouble him periodically.

Jay Howell had knee surgery, Alfredo Griffin has had an aching back, Tim Belcher has had shoulder trouble.

In the face of it all, Lasorda puts on the happy mask. Every now and then, the local scribes step out to one of Lasorda’s unending string of speaking engagements to find out what he’s really thinking.

On the banquet circuit, they’ve heard:

“You know what I think? For the money some of these guys are getting paid, I think they should have a clause in their contracts saying they have to pay the club $150,000 if they don’t make the All-Star team.”

It’s not really the big money that troubles Lasorda these days. When he took this job in 1976, he was managing players he had known through the minor-league system. The farm system isn’t producing prospects for him now. So his players don’t understand the loyalty concept that has been such a part of his 40 years with the Dodgers, his 40 years with his wife Jo.

Lasorda hasn’t adjusted to the new values or gotten to know these new players. In three months with the Dodgers, Javier says he hasn’t yet sat down and talked to Lasorda, the kind of manager who inquires about former players and, by name, their wives.

If any of this bothers Lasorda, his players don’t notice it. They swallow his spaghetti sauce by the spoonful.

“Since the World Series, things haven’t been great,” Dempsey says. “You can get tired of losing. But Tommy is always regenerating. Every day he feels we’re just about to start a long winning streak.”