Goodbye, Mr. Ambassador

Say it ain’t so, Tommy. Who can imagine Dodger Stadium without Lasorda in the dugout? The Skipper managed with the best of them--Sparky, Casey, Earl--other guys with big personalities and no need of introduction.

Lasorda says he bleeds Dodger Blue, and does. He prays to the Big Dodger in the sky. His loyalty couldn’t be bought, as George Steinbrenner once found out when searching for yet another manager for the Yankees. Lasorda’s wife, Jo, once complained that he loved baseball more than he loved her; he assured her that he loved her more than football or basketball.

He lasted into his 20th season with the Dodgers, only the second manager since the team moved west from Brooklyn. His long tenure was the exception in an era of managers who come and go as quickly as free agents change uniforms.

Lasorda’s doctors cleared him to go back to managing after his recent heart attack, but he’s retiring rather than test his health by exercising his loud, excitable, expletive-filled, no-holds-barred managerial style. After 47 years with the Dodgers--baseball is the only job he has known--he’ll become a vice president of the Dodger organization.

As Lasorda moves from the field to the front office, he can take pride in two world championships won on his watch and other highlights galore: Fernandomania. Pitcher Orel Hersheiser’s 59 consecutive scoreless innings, breaking Don Drysdale’s record. The Kirk Gibson home run that electrified the ’88 World Series. Nomo’s pitching and Piazza’s hitting.

Baseball has never had a better ambassador. At Monday’s news conference, Lasorda said he’d already picked his epitaph: “Dodger Stadium was his address, but every ballpark was his home.”