Suddenly, Lasorda Has All Hands on Deck

Tom Lasorda has another example to add to his extensive list of motivational stories.

His own.

Last year he was tied to the bow of the Dodger ship, nothing more than a figurehead out in front. Now he’s at the helm as the captain, interim or no interim in his new general manager title.

“Nothing is impossible,” Lasorda said Monday, and wouldn’t he know.

Last month Lasorda was so out of the loop that he found out about the Mike Piazza deal, the biggest trade in team history, when a radio guy called to ask for his reaction. (Even though the Fox folks didn’t ask for Fred Claire’s input on the trade, at least they told him they were going to do it.)

From here on out he calls the shots--or at least as many shots as the Fox Group will let him call.

After health problems forced him to give up the managerial post he held for 20 years in 1996, he spent the last two seasons in Dodger purgatory, serving as the team’s minor league evaluator/goodwill ambassador.

He wanted to be in the mix. Instead he was in places like Great Falls, Mont.

“I am happy, but I’m not satisfied,” Lasorda told The Times’ Bill Plaschke last year. “I want to do more.”

All of his back-room lobbying and undermining of Bill Russell paid off. What a comeback. Lasorda is in there now, in a position of more power than he ever enjoyed.

“I told Tommy I want him much more involved with the baseball operations than he has been in the past couple of years,” team President Bob Graziano said.

The Artful Dodger has mastered the Art of the Deal. The one thing Lasorda might do better than manage is give those inspirational speeches to corporate types.

It’s a lucrative side job, and apparently one that comes in handy. No doubt about it, he wowed the Fox execs. No one in Dodgerdom has come through the transition from the O’Malleys to the Foxes better than Lasorda.

Don’t look for him to be leaving any time soon, either. He dreamed of this even when he was a manager.

Lasorda is supposed to be leading the search for the next general manager. Does anyone think he’ll find someone out there more passionate and committed to the Dodgers than he is? That search will lead him right back to his chair.

Asked about his long-term prospects on Monday, Lasorda said: “Let’s put it this way: I’ll finish out this season. If they like what they see, if I’m happy with what I have done and they want to look for the best man, I’ll just tell them, ‘Hey, look over here.’ ”

Lasorda can do the job. He already has more credentials than 90% of his peers. He knows everyone in the league and is a good judge of talent.

The rest is details. The Dodgers can get some accountant to worry about the commas and zeros in the contracts. Hire an underling to watch the waiver wire.

But Lasorda won’t stop at just being the general manager. Poor Glenn Hoffman, the manager brought in from triple-A Albuquerque to handle the on-field decisions. Lasorda will be more hands-on than Bob Packwood.

Lasorda did little to dispel that notion during the news conference Monday.

“Whatever Glenn wants me to do,” Lasorda said, “I will be around to help at all times. If that means talking to players, I would be more than happy to do that.”

It won’t be too long before the following phone call takes place.

Hoffman: “Tommy, do you think . . . “

Lasorda: “Be right down, Glenn!”

There’s one thing Lasorda definitely needs to handle, and that’s all media interaction. Hoffman is as dull as they get. By the end of his first news conference he had almost exhausted his allotment of cliches for the season, right up to the Dodgers had to “take it one game at a time.”

Lasorda, meanwhile, spouted lines like: “Chan Ho Park? Yeah, he better start winning, or I’m going to spank him.”

And he already started his rah-rah rallying of the troops.

“If they can believe that they can do it, then they can achieve it,” he said.

After the distance Lasorda traveled, that deficit in the National League West doesn’t seem like too much.