20 YEARS 20 MOMENTS : Lasorda’s Numbers Don’t Tell It All, but Tell Enough

On Sunday, Tom Lasorda will become the 14th manager, and 15th Dodger, inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame. This is the second in a series recounting his 31-year managerial road from Pocatello, Idaho, to Cooperstown, N.Y.

When Tom Lasorda is given the traditional private tour of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Saturday night in Cooperstown, N.Y., he will quickly come to a sobering conclusion.

This ain’t exactly Blue Heaven.

Eight managers in the room have won more games.

Six managers have won more World Series championships.

In terms of victories, he will rank somewhere just behind Bill McKechnie and ahead of Earl Weaver.

But you know Lasorda. Give him a few moments, and nobody will be able to remember anybody else.

Give him a few moments, and he’ll have the faces on those bronze plaques laughing and cheering and begging to sprint around Doubleday Field for him.

He is not about statistics; he is about these moments, 20 years’ worth, little pieces of baseball history that he created with little more than his heart.

Sometimes that heart betrayed him into a moment famous for its failure--Lasorda’s busts were as deafening as his brilliance.

But most of the moments were good, some were magic, and all were enough to land him in the Hall in his first year of eligibility with men who have more than doubled his victories (Connie Mack) and championships won (Casey Stengel).

It is this newspaper’s style to refer to him as “Tom” Lasorda because that is how he answers the phone and signs his name.

But these moments were pure Tommy.

The Top 20 Tommy Moments, symbolically one for each year as Dodger manager, ranked in reverse order:

20. THE COVERUP

Lasorda quieted a chanting crowd and helped the city avoid an ugly scene at the Dodgers’ downtown 1981 championship celebration when he told them Fernando Valenzuela was absent because he had a bad cold.

The real story was, Fernando didn’t want to come because he was afraid of being mobbed, but Lasorda didn’t figure that mob would understand.

19. THE SCHOOL

Visitors to Vero Beach, Fla., were often stunned to find Lasorda spending late spring afternoons pitching to anonymous minor leaguers in front of empty bleachers.

They had no idea they were watching another session of “Lasorda University,” formally established about 10 years ago, a special camp that Lasorda ran throughout the year in his spare time.

Admission was free. The only instructor was him. Recent graduates include Mike Piazza, Eric Karros and Raul Mondesi.

18. THE TALK

It was 2 a.m. on the streets of New York. Lasorda and publicity man Steve Brener, having just arrived with the team for a series against the Mets, were looking for a newspaper.

A police car spotted them, recognized Lasorda, drove them to the New York Times loading dock to get the latest edition.

Next thing Brener knows, Lasorda is in the bowels of a subway giving a speech to the graveyard cops. Afterward, he spoke to inmates in a subway prison. It was nearly 4 a.m

“They were chained to a wall, and he’s telling them about being good Americans, and now they want his autograph, but they can’t get out of their chains,” recalled Brener.

17. THE OFFICE

In Lasorda’s first official act as Dodger manager in 1977, he moved his office at Dodger Stadium from Walter Alston’s tiny cubicle to a large former training room that could hold a television set, couches, and the players’ postgame buffet.

Players began hanging out with the manager. The entire town began hanging out with the manager. No transaction, before or since, has changed the clubhouse atmosphere more.

16. THE DESK

When pitcher Rick Sutcliffe learned he was not going to be moved from the disabled list to the playoff roster at the end of the 1981 season, he came into Lasorda’s office, placed his arm on Lasorda’s desk, and swiped its entire contents onto the floor.

Despite winning rookie of the year two seasons earlier, Sutcliffe was traded that winter.

The lesson here that players remembered for the next 15 years? Don’t mess with the boss. Ever.

15. THE UNNATURAL

For several years in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, the Dodger batboy in San Francisco was a young man from San Jose whom Lasorda had helped talk out of a coma.

Lasorda promised to make him a Dodger if he ever woke up, and did.

14. THE HUNCH

The first paragraph in this newspaper’s game story on Oct. 8, 1977 precisely described this town’s feelings about its still-rookie manager.

“Maybe Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda is right,” wrote Bill Shirley. “Maybe there really is a Big Dodger in the Sky.”

Call it the first miracle. Trailing the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-3, with two out in the ninth inning of their third league playoff game, Lasorda sent up aging pinch-hitter Vic Davalillo, who hit a surprise bunt single.

Then he sent up aging pinch-hitter Manny Mota, who doubled.

Two batters and a couple of Phillies’ blunders later, the Dodgers had scored three times to win the game, and the series, and put Lasorda in his first World Series.

13 THE CONVERSATION

For a guy who would talk to anybody, anytime, the idea of being miked for national television during the fourth game of the 1977 World Series against the New York Yankees seemed like a good idea for Lasorda at the time.

How was he to know that Doug Rau, who was starting despite pitching only one inning in the previous three weeks, would not be able to get out of the second inning in an eventual 4-2 loss?

How was he to know that when he went to the mound, he would curse Rau in a rage that is still heard--bleeps and all--in highlight films today?

Then again, maybe he did know.

After all, he ordered Rick Rhoden--who many thought should have started--to begin warming up after the first batter of the first inning.

12. THE HOOK

To many around the country, the last day of the Dodgers’ 1982 season will be remembered because of Joe Morgan.

Those in town know it was more about Fernando Valenzuela.

Morgan perhaps would never have hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning to give the San Francisco Giants an eventual 5-3 victory and knock the Dodgers out of a first-place tie with the Atlanta Braves . . . if he had been forced to hit it against Valenzuela instead of Terry Forster.

But the man who rewarded Lasorda’s faith a year earlier in the World Series had been removed from a tie game in the top of the seventh inning for a pinch-hitter.

Problem was, Jorge Orta was batting .154 off the bench . . . worse than Valenzuela’s .172 average. And Valenzuela had retired the last 10 Giants.

It was a move that was impossible to second-guess because by batting for your pitcher in a tie game on the road, Lasorda was going by the “book.”

But it became a move that, because it was the Giants, and because it was the cocky Morgan, became impossible to forget.

11. THE NICKNAME

It was 1983. The Dodgers had a sharp rookie pitcher with two problems: He looked like a librarian and sometimes acted afraid.

Lasorda thought about it for a few weeks, then called the rookie into his office.

“Kid, even I would like to hit against somebody named Orel,” he told him. “From now on, your name is Bulldog.”

10. THE DIET

Here was the wager, from Kirk Gibson and Orel Hershiser, during another linguine orgy in Lasorda’s office on a late afternoon at Vero Beach in 1988:

If Lasorda lost 20 pounds by the All-Star break, the players would each give him $10,000.

Officials from a little-known diet program known as ULTRA Slim-Fast heard about the bet.

Nine years later, the company is millions richer, a Nashville, Tenn., convent has been built from the bet money, and commercials have made Lasorda the most recognizable living baseball figure on the planet.

Not to mention, many of the 40 pounds he lost are still missing.

No, he no longer uses the stuff. His diet is now planned by his cardiologist.

9. THE PIG

Before one game in Houston, Lasorda ate 100 oysters.

8. THE KID

The summer of 1988. Lasorda has persuaded Dodger scouting director Ben Wade to take an old family friend as his 62nd-round draft pick--1,390th overall.

Now he has to persuade him to give the kid a tryout. Begs him, actually.

Wade agrees, but only if Lasorda agrees to stay away from the stadium.

The kid shows up. Wade shows up. One batting practice pitcher shows up. Lasorda is hiding by his office, crossing his crooked fingers.

Five minutes into the tryout, Mike Piazza hits his first home run in a Dodger uniform. Then his second. And third. And fourth. And. . . .

7. THE HEAVENS

After reliever Jesse Orosco had given up two runs without getting an out in Game 3 of the 1988 playoffs against the New York Mets, Lasorda told coaches that God would strike him dead before he used him again.

One night later, in the 12th inning, with a one-run lead, and nearly out of pitchers, Lasorda had no choice.

As he walked to the mound to bring in Orosco, lightning filled the air.

“God,” Lasorda shouted, “I was just kidding!”

He returned one batter later after Orosco had walked the bases loaded, screamed at him on national TV, then watched him retire Darryl Strawberry.

Hershiser got one out to finish one of the strangest victories in Dodger history, leading to an eventual series upset of the mighty Mets.

6. THE WALK

Lasorda’s last stamp on his first World Series championship forever left an impression on opposing Manager Bob Lemon’s career.

“Champagne With a Twist of Lemon” screamed the headline in this newspaper, and right we were.

The Dodgers finished off a four-games-to-two World Series win over the Yankees with a 9-2 victory after Yankee pitcher Tommy John was pulled for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the fourth inning of a tie game.

The reason? Lasorda challenged Lemon to do just that by walking Larry Milbourne to put runners on first and second with two out.

John was replaced at the plate by Bobby Murcer, who flied out. He was replaced on the mound by George Frazier, who gave up three runs in the next inning to give the Dodgers all they needed.

“I can’t believe that,” John kept repeating in the dugout.

Lasorda did. Twice before in this Series Lasorda had made that move, and, twice before, Lemon had replaced his pitcher with a pinch-hitter.

5. THE JACK

Only two words are necessary to describe the managerial decision that became Lasorda’s black thumbnail.

Jack Clark.

Say the name, and everything comes back. National League playoffs, 1985, St. Louis Cardinals, Game 6, Dodgers need a win to stay alive, lead by one run, ninth inning, two out, runners on second and third, Jack Clark batting, Andy Van Slyke on deck, Clark batting .381 in the playoffs, Van Slyke batting .091, possible pinch-hitter Brian Harper is hitless. . . .

And Lasorda does not intentionally walk Clark to the open first base. He orders Tom Niedenfuer to pitch to him.

Clark needed five seconds to drive the ball halfway up the left-field pavilion. Lasorda needed three years to convince people it was no longer there.

4. THE FAITH

He could have taken Fernando Valenzuela out in the second inning. Dave Goltz was warming up and the rookie star was struggling.

He could have taken him out in the third inning, after Valenzuela had given up two home runs and the Dodgers trailed by a run.

One-hundred forty-six pitches later, Valenzuela was still working, pitching the Dodgers to a 5-4 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 3 of the 1981 World Series, closing the gap to two games to one.

“I said, ‘This is the year of Fernando,’ ” Lasorda said, explaining his decision to leave him in.

After three more victories gave the Dodgers the title, this was the year of Lasorda.

3. THE SNAP

It was May of 1978, Dave Kingman of the Chicago Cubs had just hit three homers and driven in eight runs to beat the Dodgers, and radio reporter Paul Olden approached Lasorda with the question, “What’s your opinion of Kingman’s performance.”

Space prevents us from printing the entire transcript of Lasorda’s answer, but, in summary, it contained 13 curse words used as verbs, adverbs, adjectives and prepositions.

The tape is heard daily by more radio listeners than Rush Limbaugh.

2. THE END

When Lasorda was hospitalized for abdominal pain on June 23, 1996, it figures that everyone thought it was a stomach ache.

What didn’t figure was that, even though the pain was eventually diagnosed as a heart attack, the pain would force him to retire a month later.

To those still trying to decide who quit and who was pushed, listen to the words of his wife, Jo, shortly after the attack was diagnosed.

“He never even talks about retiring,” she said at the time.

1. THE MOTIVATOR

When NBC’s Bob Costas ripped the Dodger lineup on the air before the fourth game of the 1988 World Series against the Oakland A’s, Lasorda had been given the most important assist of his career.

Some managers would have told their teams to ignore the guy on the clubhouse TV when he called them perhaps the worst lineup in World Series history.

Lasorda, instead, told them to listen.

“Can you believe that?” he shouted. “How can he say that about us!”

It was his finest hour in a season filled with them, a season that kept him in town for another eight years, a season that sent him to the Hall of Fame.

That DH-included lineup that was enraged enough to beat the powerful A’s that night, eventually leading to his second championship?

Steve Sax, Franklin Stubbs, Mickey Hatcher, Mike Davis, John Shelby, Mike Scioscia, Danny Heep, Jeff Hamilton, Alfredo Griffin.

With each passing year, the lineup seems worse. Everyone but the manager.