Meeting Tommy Lasorda

[roundmound]

Andy's post reminded me of this-

I am in the Admirals Club at O'Hare airport sitting at the bar having a beer. Im lookin straight ahead looking at the TV while this loudmouth sits down a couple seats to my right. He is on his cell phone talking loud enough for the whole place to hear. I hear him say something about a press conference and recognize that it is Tommy. He is as dumb as he looks because he was trying to convince the guy on the other end that Venezuela wasn't gonna be participating the in WBC. After he gets off the phone I say high to him, shake his hand. I don't think he was too impressed becuase he decides to go sit in a lounge chair. 10 minutes later he has his head thrown back as his snorring resonates accross the room. I am pretty sure no one else recognized him and thought he was some random crazy man interupting their business by snorring. I thought it was one of the funniest things I had seen. I left about this point and he was gone when I had come back.


I wrote about bumping into Tyson in OOT somewhere. It was an equally hilarious experience!

[EMc]

I met him when I was about 9 or 10 at a NYM/LADodger game. He was pretty cool and signed my ticket, but I was upset cause I wanted the straw to sign. I met Norm from cheers that game toom but was too young to comprehend the awesomeness.

On another note, my dad has met Tyson twice and was the arresting officer at his latest arrest in NYC. HE has a cool picture of him and tyson at fists in his apartment.

[youtalkfunny]

A friend of mine is good friends with a veteran MLB pitcher, who played for Lasorda. This pitcher (who will remain nameless here) has nothing but nice things to say about anybody--except Lasorda. "If you have a bad game, he's killing you in the press. If you have a good game, he's the first guy to step in between you and the cameras after the game, give you big phony pat on the back for the world to see."

[Clarkmeister]

Paging Andy Fox. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[tdarko]

i have met tommy lasorda and he is one of the funnier baseball guys around, stories galore.

[wisehandpoker]

anyone ask why he so single-mindedly tried to ruin the career of every rookie pitcher who ever played for him? The most overrated manager of all time

[Oski]

[ QUOTE ]
A friend of mine is good friends with a veteran MLB pitcher, who played for Lasorda. This pitcher (who will remain nameless here) has nothing but nice things to say about anybody--except Lasorda. "If you have a bad game, he's killing you in the press. If you have a good game, he's the first guy to step in between you and the cameras after the game, give you big phony pat on the back for the world to see."

[/ QUOTE ]

Jim Gott?

[youtalkfunny]

No. Never heard of Jim Gott.

[MicroBob]

Never heard of Jim Gott??


I have a couple of Lasorda stories stemming from my days as a minor-league radio broadcaster in the Dodgers organization.

Have met him several times. He never knew my name but always recognized me as 'the radio guy'.

I probably interviewed him 4 or 5 times for my teeny little radio station in Vero Beach, Florida.

He's a total trip imo.

He's been interviewed HOW many times...by HOW many big stations (TV and radio)???
Why the hell is he calling his buddies in Florida to tell them to listen to him because my taped-interview with him is going to air in 15 minutes?


I asked him about baseball's declining popularity in one interview (post-strike and pre-McGwire/Sosa HR chase) and he went straight from being upset that the game isn't as affordable as it should be and then into how he hates inter-league play and hates the designated hitter (which the AL has had since like 1972...but I guess it still bugs him).


he was getting all red in the face about inter-league play (which, again, he brought up on his own) and spitting all over my microphone as he was yelling so much. It was really weird.
I seriously thought he was going to have a heart-attack right there. I wasn't even saying anything...and he seemed to be getting really mad at me.

I was actually late getting on the air that night because he just went on and on and i couldn't shut him up.
It was bizarre.

This was in Sarasota.
Our manager that year (good friend of mine) also played basketball in college. So Tommy Lasorda took him out to lunch to see a friend of his...but wouldn't tell him who it was.
When they got there...it was Dick Vitale.


So our manager (who is kind of soft-spoken) had lunch with both Lasorda and Vitale and was totally in heaven...even though he never got to say a damn word for like 2 hours since those two kind of dominated the conversation.

(Vitale actually used to coach some amateur-league baseball in the 1970's and is a big baseball fan)

[rwperu34]

[ QUOTE ]
After he gets off the phone I say high to him, shake his hand. I don't think he was too impressed becuase he decides to go sit in a lounge chair.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe he would have been more impressed if you had said "Hi" or "Hello".