Lasorda, Tommy (1927—)

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Lasorda, Tommy (1927—)

In an era when the life expectancy for managerial careers in baseball was short, Los Angeles Dodgers' skipper Tommy Lasorda outlasted them all. From his debut in September 1976 until his retirement two decades later, the popular Lasorda was his team's motivational leader as well as its greatest fan. Displaying a youthful exuberance on the field, in the dugout, at press conferences, and in his television commercials, Lasorda's eternal optimism was contagious. His knack for bringing out the best in his players contributed both to his team's success and Lasorda's well-earned reputation as a "player's manager."

The left-handed pitcher Tommy Lasorda began his major league baseball career with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954. As a twenty-six year-old rookie with poor control on a pitching staff that boasted the likes of Don Newcombe, Carl Erskine, and Johnny Podres—and soon Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale—Lasorda quickly found himself exiled to the hapless Kansas City Athletics, where his major league career ended in 1956 with a record of zero wins versus four losses. After returning to the Dodgers' minor league system, where he toiled for a few more seasons, Lasorda hung up his spikes in 1960 and became a scout and then a minor league manager for the newly relocated Los Angeles Dodgers. It wasn't until 1973 that Lasorda finally made it back to the major leagues, this time as a coach under long-time Dodgers manager Walter Alston. If Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley was never forgiven for moving his team out of Brooklyn, he was nevertheless credited for his loyalty to his field managers. Alston, who had made his managerial debut the same year Lasorda threw his first pitch for the Brooklyn team, finally retired in September 1976 after having honored 20 consecutive one-year contracts, giving Tommy Lasorda the opportunity for which he had been preparing for almost two decades.

With four games left in the 1976 season, Lasorda took over as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a job he, like his predecessor, would keep for 20 years. Enjoying instant success, Lasorda guided his team to back-to-back pennants in 1977 and 1978, capped by a come-from-behind World Series victory in 1981, along the way making himself popular with both the fans and with his team. Inspiring his team as much by bumping bellies with umpires in disputes over blown calls as by back-slapping, hand-clapping, and butt-patting his way through game-winning rallies, the animated Dodgers manager enjoyed a rapport with players shared by few of his peers. At the same time, despite the O'Malley family's tradition of one-year contracts for its managers, no major league skipper was more secure than Tommy Lasorda. And Lasorda affirmed his reciprocal devotion to the Dodgers by proclaiming that if cut he would "bleed Dodger blue."

Lasorda's lessons in self-confidence parlayed into a side-career as a pitchman for Ultra Slim-Fast, a product which he used to shed some excess poundage in the late 1980s. (Lasorda apparently saw little contradiction when he simultaneously marketed his own brand of spaghetti sauce.) Through his commercials and, in the early 1980s, appearances on such kids' shows as the "Baseball Genie," Lasorda became familiar as a television personality to a broader public. However, his colorful verbal exchanges with umpires on the field would hardly have passed the networks' censors and were decidedly inappropriate for Lasorda's younger admirers.

On the diamond, Lasorda reached the pinnacle of his managerial career during the storybook 1988 season, when the weak-hitting Dodgers unexpectedly triumphed over the powerful Oakland Athletics in the World Series. Although the Dodgers experienced some success in the years that followed, the team failed to win another pennant during the balance of Lasorda's tenure, which ended in the middle of the 1996 season when he experienced health problems. Retiring with a record of 1599 wins (versus 1439 losses) and six pennants, Lasorda moved to the Dodgers' front office and in 1998 became the team's interim general manager; shortly thereafter he was persuaded to give up the position and was named a senior Vice President in the organization. In 1997 Lasorda achieved the distinction of being inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame as a manager, following his predecessor Walter Alston (inducted in 1983).

Always careful to defend his players publicly—though rarely hesitant to blast a malcontent in private—Tommy Lasorda earned a degree of loyalty enjoyed by few managers. In an era characterized by escalating salaries and labor disputes, Lasorda's spirited approach to baseball was a breath of fresh air for a sport that was increasingly being recognized as a business.

—Kevin O'Connor