Like the Genuine Item, It Just Won’t Shut Up

How do you pass up the opportunity to write about the Tom Lasorda “talking figurines” the Dodgers are going to give to young fans attending Tuesday’s game with the Colorado Rockies?

You press a button in the figurine’s rear and it actually sounds as if Lasorda is talking through his butt, which reminds me, I asked him how he thought the Dodgers might fare over the second half of the season, and he said they can do the same thing his ’88 Dodgers accomplished.

We spent some time together this week laughing about the figurine -- OK, so I was the one laughing, and joking about the canned corn coming out of the figurine -- OK, so I was the one joking about what it says: “Hi everybody, this is Tommy Lasorda, you know I’ve said this many, many times and we have the greatest fans in all of baseball.”

If he has said it, “many, many times,” as I told Lasorda, why does he have to say it again? How about some new material?

“[Actor] Tony Danza told me he bought one to give to his son at one of the souvenir stands,” Lasorda said. “He liked it so much he took it away from his son.”

What a heartwarming story.

The minitubby Lasorda figurines double as key chains, and when pressed over and over again should put any baby to sleep. “What did I have -- 14 words or so to say on there?” Lasorda grumbled. “What would you have wanted me to say?”

Just think of the look on the little tots’ faces Tuesday night if they pressed the button, and they got the Dave Kingman outburst.

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NOW I’D prefer to begin every Page 2 day with a Lasorda laugh, a Grocery Store Bagger yuck, or poking fun at USC fans who don’t get it, but in writing this column the last three years I’ve become enthralled with the talent of no other athlete in the area more than Kobe Bryant, and so to be honest, I’m struggling with this one.

“We’re talking about an L.A. sporting treasure here for so many years to come,” I wrote last year, and in the last few days I have had several folks come up to me and ask, “so now what do you say?”

I don’t know what to say.

Now everyone I have heard on talk radio the last few days has had something to say. It has been idiotic, of course, which is not unlike most days -- and I’m just talking about what I’ve heard from the hosts of these shows.

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WHO KNOWS right now? I spent hours with former Ram defensive back Darryl Henley, as nice an athlete as you will ever meet, raised by two of the most decent people you could hope to meet, and Henley repeatedly told me he was innocent.

There is no possibility of parole now for Henley until March 28, 2031.

We know Kobe has admitted making a mistake and hurting his wife, and while that’s none of our business, he made it so. There’s so much at work here, the legal experts now weighing in on every channel, and now instead of dominating on the court, he’ll be in one.

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FROM THE outset, I was intrigued with Kobe the athlete, and the opportunity to watch someone special and so young grow before our eyes as the folks in Chicago did with Michael Jordan.

Two years ago I began poking fun at Kobe -- what a surprise. He accepted it with a grin -- what a surprise. We began a two-year playful argument about how he couldn’t shoot three-pointers any better than one of my daughters, and he responded by setting an NBA record -- what a surprise -- while agreeing to shoot against her for the benefit of charity.

I write a column. I’m paid to give my opinions. I liked the kid. He was smart, although that could be debated now. He made Laker games, which can be boring, a night well spent at Staples Center. He was loaded with charisma, and that’s entertainment.

I don’t write the headlines in this newspaper, but I wouldn’t have disagreed with the one on the Page 2 (March 28, 2002) column: “This Is a Guy They Can Bring Home to Daddy.”

I began that column by noting I had two daughters Kobe’s age, and I wondered how they might fare in the same public arena under such intense scrutiny.

I hoped if the day ever came when the Grocery Store Bagger, who will be marrying my daughter soon, made more than minimum wage, he’d have his act together as much as Kobe. I owe someone an apology.

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NONE OF this, of course, has anything to do with what happened in Colorado, which is why I struggle now to know what to write.

I would like to believe him. I support the athlete I came to know within the limited boundaries of professional sports, but like actors who perform on stage, when they leave the theater, they leave everyone behind, and who knows?

I also remain a father of two daughters, and I know my reaction if I learn my support has been misplaced.

That leaves me now as a spectator with not much more to say at this time.

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TODAY’S LAST word is directed toward the Big Dodger in the sky:

“The Cubs invited Lasorda to sing ‘Take me out to the ballgame’ during the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field last week, and when it came to the part about ‘root, root root for the....,’ Lasorda, who had said ‘Dodgers,’ the last time he sung there, said, ‘Cubs,’ this time.”

The way the Dodgers are hitting, I guess You can’t blame him.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.