Lasorda Will Always Find a Way to Manage

Your lunch with Tommy Lasorda begins with an insult.

“By golly,” Lasorda says as he scans the room, a big room, his room for the next half-hour, “I have the good fortune of speaking to many, many groups throughout these great United States, but this group here, I’d have to say, without reservation, from the bottom of my heart, is the greatest bunch of candidates I’ve seen for Ultra-Slim Fast all year.”

The room bursts into laughter. The room is with Tommy. It worked again. It always works.

Next, a Pope joke. Of course. Can’t miss with a Pope joke, especially the one about the Pope and the limousine driver in New York City, where the Pope is in a hurry and tries to bribe the driver into breaking all speed laws so he can make an important meeting. No go, says the driver, so the Pope grabs the steering wheel, throws the driver in the back seat and starts cruising at 70, 75, 80 miles an hour.

Inevitably, the Pope is pulled over by a traffic cop and Lasorda lunges for the punch line. “The cop goes back to his motorcycle, picks up the two-way radio and says, ‘Chief, you won’t believe who I just stopped. This guy, Chief, is really big. I’m telling you, he’s really big. ‘

“And the chief says, ‘My God, man, you’re excited. Who is it, the president of the United States?’

“The cop says, ‘Bigger than that.’

“ ‘Well, who is it? Frank Sinatra?’

“ ‘Bigger than that.’

“ ‘Bigger than that? My God, who is this guy?’

“ ‘I don’t know, Chief,’ the cop says, ‘but he’s got to be big. He’s got the Pope driving him.’ ”

Lasorda has finished his warm-up pitches. It’s time for the hard stuff.

You know, winning is everything to Lasorda . . . and did he ever tell you about the time he and Cincinnati manager John McNamara went to the same Sunday Mass the morning before a Dodger-Red game?

“He sat right next to me,” Lasorda says. “I knew why he was in church. And he knew why I was there. So at the conclusion of the Mass, he and I walked out the center aisle together and as we approached the front door, he very quietly said, ‘Wait for me outside, I’ll be right out.’

“I said, ‘OK, Johnny,’ and then I start thinking, ‘Wait a minute, where’s he gone?’ And I watched him. He went over to that side of the church and he knelt down and he lit a candle. And instead of me going through the front door, I went over to that side of the church and I waited by the altar.

“And when he left, I went down and blew that candle out.”

Losing is the pits, Lasorda’s gotta tell ya. Take last season’s pennant race. Please. The Dodgers could have won the NL West, should have won the NL West, but when they didn’t, Lasorda said he broke down and started crying in the clubhouse.

“My coaches knew how I felt,” Lasorda says, “and they come into my office to say goodby to me and I said something to them I probably shouldn’t have said. I said, ‘Right now, the way I feel, I feel like killing myself.

“Joey Amalfitano, my third base coach, says, ‘Tommy, don’t do it, don’t let these players drive you to that.’ He says, ‘You ever heard of this organization called Suicide Anonymous? It’s an organization that’s already talked a lot of people out of killing themselves.’

“So when he left, he left me the number and I said, ‘I need someone to encourage me right now. I need somebody to say something nice to me.’

“So I dialed the number and the guy who answers the phone put me on hold. When he came back, five minutes later, I told him that Strawberry had missed 40 games, Eddie Murray went six weeks without getting an extra-base hit and I lost our No. 1 relief pitcher, Jay Howell, for a month and a half.

“The guy says to me, ‘Buddy, after listening to your story, I think you’re doing the right thing.’ ”

A few more minutes of shtickball and it’s time for questions from the audience.

Lasorda is asked about escalating baseball salaries and when’s it all going to end.

Lasorda says he doesn’t know, but that reminds him of a story.

“I remember Fernando in 1981, when he set the baseball world on fire, and I said to him, ‘Fernando, you’re in a new country, man, you’ve got to learn to speak English.’ And the first word he learned was ‘million.’ And the second one was ‘two.’ ”

Lasorda is asked about the Eric Davis trade.

“I’m very very happy to get Eric Davis. We needed a right-handed power hitter on this team. And I’ll tell you something: A lot of guys said to me, ‘Hey, you got a guy who did not have a good year last year.’ And I say, ‘Hey, if he’d have hit 40 home runs, you think we could’ve gotten him for Belcher?’ ”

Lasorda is asked who will be his backup catcher this season, now that Gary Carter-Tour America has moved on to its next stop.

Lasorda says Carlos Hernandez, but wants to talk about Mike Scioscia, his starting catcher. “I can remember when I gave Scioscia the job as catcher. Some writers came to me and said that (Steve) Yeager told them that I gave Scioscia the job because he’s Italian. I said ‘That’s a lie. That is a lie.’ I said I didn’t give him that job because he’s Italian. I gave him that job because I’m Italian.”

Lasorda is 64 years old. He is in the final year of his current contract. His long-rumored heir apparent, Bill Russell, has been re-assigned to manage Class-AAA Albuquerque, grooming himself for the if and the when.

But Lasorda doesn’t want to talk about retirement. And that leads us to another story.

“When Whitey (Herzog) stepped down as manager of the Cardinals, I was interviewed by a guy who asked me, ‘Tommy, during your tenure as manager of the Dodgers, have you ever thought about quitting?’

“I said, ‘Buddy, let me tell you something. I managed eight years in the minor leagues and I rode those busses all over Idaho, all over. I spent endless hours on the baseball field, working with youngsters and preparing them to play in the major leagues.

“ ‘When I used to go to bed at night and say my prayers, and say, ‘God, if you could see it in your heart, please, I want to manage in the major leagues.’

“ ‘And then I went six years to the Dominican Republic and Venezuela--and you want to try and do that for six years--and I used to go to bed and say my prayers and I’d say, ‘God, if you can see it in your heart to put me in the majors as a manager, please let it be with the Dodgers.’

“And I looked at him and said, ‘Now you think I’m going to quit and give that to someone else?’ They’re gonna have to take that uniform off me. And they’re gonna have to get there real early to get it.”

Eventually, that day will come, and they will come. Lasorda then will be retired as manager, but he will never manage to be retired. Luncheons, roasts and dinner banquets are forever, which is the real reason Lasorda continues to hang on with the Dodgers.

He needs new material.