Tommy Lasorda, R.I.P.

Former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda passed away yesterday of a heart attack. He had been in poor health for several months. Lasorda was 93, the oldest living member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Although Lasorda was synonymous with the Dodgers, he originally signed with the Philadelphia Phillies as a pitcher out of high school in 1945. After two years of military service, Lasorda joined the Dodgers' organization in 1949 and save for a brief stint with the Kansas City Athletics and New York Yankees' organizations in 1956 would remain a Dodger for life. 

While Lasorda never earned a big league win at the major league level, he won 107 games for the Triple AAA Montreal Royals in a minor league career which lasted 14 seasons.

In 1960, the Dodgers hired Lasorda as a scout. From 1966 to 1972, Lasorda managed at several levels in the Dodgers' minor league organization. In 1973, Lasorda was named the Dodgers' third base coach with the intent of grooming him to succeed Walter Alston. Lasorda would become Dodgers' manager in 1977 and remain for 20 seasons. In those two decades, Lasorda led the Dodgers to 7 NL West titles, 4 NL pennants and 2 World Series titles in 1981 and 1988. 

After stepping down from the Dodgers during the 1996 season, the Veterans Committee would induct Lasorda into the Hall of Fame in 1997. Lasorda would come out of retirement to manage Team U.S.A. to a Gold Medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Lasorda was a larger than life personality who could appeal to kids as The Dugout Wizard on The Baseball Bunch with Johnny Bench or completely obscene as was the case with his rants about Kurt Bevacqua and Dave Kingman. 

My Dad actually got to meet Lasorda while visiting Atlanta in 1986. Prior to an otherwise meaningless late season Braves-Dodgers game, Dad got Lasorda's autograph as well as that of Braves manager Chuck Tanner, coach Willie Stargell as well as Dale Murphy. 

Dad then proceeded to ride the Dodgers who were having a rare poor season from behind home plate during the game and even got Bill Madlock ejected from the game. At one point, Lasorda came out of the dugout to stare down Dad. To which my Dad replied, "Listen, Tommy. You're the manager of the Dodgers. How bad can life be?" Lasorda smiled knowing what my Dad said was true and went back into the dugout.

Indeed, Lasorda lived a long, wonderful life. R.I.P.