Tom Terrific : Lasorda Keeps ‘Em Smiling as One of Baseball’s Characters

If he had known comedian Don Rickles was in Atlantic City, Tom Lasorda would have gone there after arriving in Philadelphia one balmy Sunday night last season.

Some of the players went, and thought they’d had fun. But Lasorda later said it would have been much more fun if he had joined them.

“Let me ask you this,” he said to the players. “How did you get to Atlantic City?”

“We rented a car,” one replied.

Lasorda nodded.

“That means you have no contacts. Heck, there would have been a limo waiting for me. . . .”

Somebody is waiting for Lasorda practically everywhere he goes, and that’s the way he wants it. So far, the only place he wasn’t immediately recognized was in Norway, and it caused some anxiety. Finally, some tourists from California showed up . . . “And Tommy breathed a sigh of relief,” says Jo, his wife.

About the only time Lasorda is alone on the road is in the late morning when he swims 50 or 60 laps in the hotel pool, and when he sleeps, which isn’t often.

“The guy never sleeps,” Eric Karros said.

*

Peter O’Malley sits back in his chair and glances out the window at his sprawling Dodgertown complex in Vero Beach, Fla. Once again, he is being asked a question that has become traditional with the opening of spring training: “Is this Lasorda’s last season?”

“The speculation happens every year and I understand that, but the presence of Reggie (Smith) and the return of Bill Russell has no bearing on Tommy’s future and it will not be a distraction to the team,” O’Malley said. “Tommy knows that, we’ve talked about it. I don’t know where any of us are going to be a year from now.”

This is Lasorda’s 45th year in the Dodger organization, his 18th season as manager. His credits are two World Series championships, four National League pennants and six Western Division titles, but the last two seasons haven’t been much fun for the 66-year old manager. O’Malley doesn’t blame Lasorda for the recent decline, instead pointing to player injuries and an interruption of talent at the minor league level.

But when Russell and Smith were promoted as coaches this season--Russell as Lasorda’s bench coach and Smith as the hitting instructor--it appeared the future had arrived. Russell--long rumored to be the next manager--had spent the past two seasons managing at triple-A Albuquerque, and Smith has been on a fast track through the ranks, and is said to have an outside chance at the job.

“Is this my last season? I have no idea,” said Lasorda, whose contract ends after the season. “You’d have to ask Peter O’Malley. I will never leave him, I will only leave if they want me to leave, and I’m not worried about it. I love managing, and I’d like to continue. But I have said this a million times, I will do whatever Peter O’Malley wants me to do.”

The speculation doesn’t stop with Lasorda. Some have suggested that it might be time for O’Malley to step aside, leaving the presidency to Fred Claire, the club’s general manager. Lasorda could then take Claire’s job, a natural step for a man who is known as an expert judge of baseball talent.

But what O’Malley would like to know is, who are these critics anyway? He has never given any thought to relinquishing the presidency, he says. He is satisfied with Claire and Lasorda in their current roles. He and Lasorda haven’t talked about the general manager position in years, he says.

“Tommy has done a great job for us, going back to the days when he scouted for us, when he was a minor league manager and a major league coach under Walter Alston,” O’Malley said.

“I don’t know if he is thinking of the front office or some other responsibility, but I don’t think so. I think he now realizes that managing is the best spot for him. But you need to ask him, I don’t know what he is looking for down the road, but he does a very good job for us.”

If Lasorda is past his prime, he certainly doesn’t know it. The job is more difficult now, he says, because he has to motivate players who didn’t grow up wearing the Dodger uniform.

“One day a few years ago I looked up from the dugout, and there were nine guys on the field playing for us, all from ex-American League teams,” Lasorda said. “I have had to change my approach, and work harder at instilling them with the pride of wearing a Dodger uniform. When I first took over as manager, 17 of the 25 guys had played for me before, with four more on their way up. Now it’s different.

“I have to talk to them and show them how special it is, and I do that by being a leader. I want my players to respect me, but I have to earn it. I try to show them how proud I am of them, how great it is that they are wearing the Dodger uniform. I love this organization so much, and I would never say anything against it, no matter what I feel.”

This abundance of gregariousness wears thin on some players, who tire of Lasorda’s “rah-rah” attitude, but it has always turned some away. And those who have been victims of Lasorda’s hot temper find it difficult to accept his cheerful side.

“Tommy’s got another side, but the side you see isn’t phony,” said Orel Hershiser, who has played 10 seasons for Lasorda. “In fact he is more openly sentimental now--he really shows his players in a more demonstrative way he likes them and the effort they put in.

“Before, the fact that Tommy liked to go out and eat with the players and enjoyed having fun in the locker room with them, everybody knew that, and he didn’t have to announce that. But now, he will go out of his way to make sure people understand him and his managerial philosophy. There’s less in the dark about who he is.”

Gone are the days when players hung out at the Lasordas in Fullerton, where Tommy and Jo still live in a small house on a quiet residential street.

“When we needed more room, we didn’t have the money,” Jo said. “And now that we have the money, we don’t need the room.”

Steve Yeager, the former catcher, and some of the players helped build a den on the house.

“We liked to hang out with each other then and with Tommy,” Yeager said. “We grew up together, and we wanted to be together. Now, it’s so different. It’s like dropping a bag of marbles. After a game, everybody scatters.”

Hershiser says that Lasorda’s style hasn’t changed over the years. He says Lasorda still manages with his heart, not by the book. He also thinks Lasorda has been able to adopt to the times.

“He is not a person who is getting older and is losing touch with the modern-day player, understanding the egos and the salaries,” Hershiser said.

Still, Lasorda likes to be surrounded by his former players, as was the case recently at an awards banquet for the Dodgers’ baseball fantasy camp. Sitting at his corner table in the dining room at Dodgertown, Lasorda called out to Davey Lopes to join him and Russell. Later, Burt Hooton joined in.

“Ask these guys if I have changed,” Lasorda says.

“Well, his clothes are better now,” Hooton says.

“He’s fatter now,” Russell says.

Lasorda often jokes with Russell about taking his job, but he says he really isn’t giving it much thought.

“I want Russell to be the next manager,” Lasorda said, “but it doesn’t bother me that he’s here. I wanted him to be here.”

The prospect of change doesn’t appear to be on O’Malley’s mind, either.

“When it’s time to search for Tommy’s successor, the search will be far and wide,” O’Malley said. “Yes, it’s proper to promote from within. But the search will be extensive, the search has not begun. All corners of the earth will be searched. But it has not yet begun.”

*

Lasorda’s favorite activities when he was a youngster in Norristown, Pa., were fighting and playing baseball. If he heard there was a tough guy somewhere, he would seek him out.

“And he never lost,” said his brother, Morris.

His father, Sam, never understood why Tom couldn’t be more like his older brother, Eddy.

“My dad would whip me and and say, ‘Why? Why? Look at Eddy, he’s never a problem. He’s good as gold.’ And I would say, ‘I don’t know why.’ ”

Lasorda’s other interest was eating. His mother used to pack him a school lunch of 10 sandwiches, a banana and a Tasty Cake pie, and he would eat three sandwiches on the way to classes.

“My father took me to the doctor because he thought I had tapeworm,” he says.

Lasorda remembers a history teacher walking by his desk and smelling the fried pepper and egg sandwiches.

“She would say, ‘My God, what do you have in that lunch?’ ” Lasorda recalled. “And I would say, ‘I would give you one, but I’m sorry, I can’t. I only have 10.’ ”

Lasorda was the second oldest of five brothers who lived in a row-like house in an Italian-American section of Norristown. He was hot tempered, moody and the most aggressive brother, said Rosalie Volpe, whose house was joined with the Lasordas’.

“Our families were very close, and you could hear everything through the walls,” Volpe said. “Tommy was always ready to fight for the boys, in honor of the brothers. I think he will always be hot tempered, because that is his mold.

“His whole life was centered around baseball, he would sneak off to play baseball instead of doing his chores. He liked to be out with the people and be the center of attention, just like now.”

As soon as school let out for the summer, Lasorda said his mother would shake him out of bed and order him to find work. He did anything he could find, including working as a bellhop for $7 a week plus tips and laying track for the Pennsylvania railroad, earning $5.50 for a 10-hour day’s work. But there was one job he remembers with disdain. Every Saturday at5 a.m. he would go to the house of a man who sold bags of potatoes.

“Every time I would go over there, he would be eating breakfast, eggs, potatoes, toast, and he would never offer me anything,” Lasorda said. “He would make me just sit and wait for him. Then, as soon as the light came up, we would start knocking on doors, trying to sell 100-pound bags of potatoes for $1 a bag.

“I would carry the bags from the cellar of (the) house to the truck, and then, carry them to the people’s house. We sold until it got dark, then anything left over, I had to carry back down to the cellar. And at the end of the day, he gave me $1. He was so tight.”

Lasorda doesn’t have to worry about money anymore. He makes more than 100 speeches a year, more than half for charity, the others paying him from $10,000 to $15,000 each. His salary is reported to be more than $800,000.

Now when he returns to Norristown it is strictly for fun.

One sweltering day in Philadelphia, Lasorda, riding in the front seat of a car with his brother, Harry, nodded off for about 10 minutes halfway through the drive from the team hotel to the family restaurant in the Marchwood Shopping Center in Exton, Pa.

The restaurant, run by his brothers, Harry, Morris, Smokey and Eddy, is Lasorda’s hangout whenever the team comes to Philadelphia. There, they make him a meal of greens and beans--his favorite. There, locals come for autographs.

Lasorda opened the back door to the kitchen and greeted the cooks and workers before making the entrance to the dining area. They continued their work, as usual, because there is nothing unusual about Lasorda’s presence. The locals, spotting Lasorda, walk up to him and form a line, holding their baseball cards and pens. Lasorda asks if a bus just pulled up.

A man approaches with 40 baseball cards. “40 cards?” Lasorda yells. “Are you crazy?” The man gets offended and retreats. But about 20 minutes later, Lasorda yells across the room and asks the man to bring some of those cards back, but not all 40. The man is still upset and sends his son over.

Vince Piazza, father of Mike, the Dodgers catcher, and Lasorda’s best friend, shows up. He is very late. Lasorda can’t believe it. What could have taken him so long, he asks Vince over and over. And where’s Mike?

The phone rings in the kitchen, and it’s Russell calling from California. Having played for Lasorda for 17 seasons, he knows exactly where to find him. Russell does a play-by-play of what just happened, what everybody ate, and Lasorda’s last words when he leaves the restaurant: “Morris, don’t forget to bring the food to the park. Don’t forget the greens.”

Bingo.

*

On a recent trip to give a speech for charity in Nashville, Tenn., Lasorda settled into the plush leather seats of a private Lear jet. One of the pilots came back and asked him if he wanted anything, saying the plane was equipped with everything, except for food.

“Then I don’t want anything,” he said.

Lasorda put on his reading glasses and canvassed the sports sections of several newspapers, occasionally rubbing his sore knees, which were bothering him after he played first base for 10 innings in a fantasy camp game.

“When we get there, I want to drop by and see the nuns, the Sisters of Mercy,” Lasorda said. “We helped build them a new convent through some fund-raisers, and got them out of a place that was condemned. They had no place to go.”

Lasorda looks out the window as the jet taxied to a stop. John Hobbs, a friend who had arranged for Lasorda to speak that night at an Old-Timer’s Baseball Banquet, is standing on the Tarmac to greet him.

He is leaning against a limo. Lasorda smiled.