Tommy Lasorda has spent 60 years with the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball franchise, but a sold-out crowd at Bellevue Community College received anything but a history lesson when the legendary baseball man spoke for the first time in the Seattle area.
Instead, dinner-goers received a humorous inside look at a life spent in baseball, as Lasorda spoke to the lighter sides of the game before closing out with a strong motivational speech at “An Evening with Tommy Lasorda”, a fundraising benefit event held at BCC on Jan. 23 with proceeds going to the Bulldogs baseball team.
Lasorda, 81, spoke for more than 50 minutes, often cracking up the crowd with tales of players of the past and other anecdotes collected in a career that has spanned six decades and resulted in two World Series titles and an Olympic gold medal as a manager. Lasorda, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, set the tone for his speech early, noting that Jo, his wife of 59 years, wasn’t too keen on the idea of him traveling to Bellevue.
“I made 22 appearances in November alone,” Lasorda said, “and when I told my wife I was coming here, she said ‘you love the Dodgers and baseball more than you love me’. And I said ‘yeah, but not as much as I love football and basketball.'”
Much of Lasorda’s speech touched on the challenges of managing a baseball team, citing examples from his 20 years spent at the helm of the Dodgers.
“It’s not easy, believe me,” he said. “You’ve got 25 guys who make a bunch of money, with egos taller than this ceiling, and you’ve got to make them believe they are really good. Then you gotta win.”
Lasorda, who ranks 13th all-time with 1,599 managerial wins, told numerous stories that elicited laughs from the crowd. Most of those stories involved a favorite target of Lasorda’s: former Dodger second baseman Steve Sax, the 1982 National League rookie of the year who spent seven years with Los Angeles.
“Steve had one problem and that was that his knowledge never quite reached the same level of his talent,” Lasorda said, laughing while noting Sax’s constant struggles with math. “I told him one time he needed to concentrate on hitting line drives if he wanted to hit .300.
“So he comes back to me and says ‘skipper, I got this thing down pat. Eighty percent of the time, I’m going to try to hit the ball down the middle. Twenty percent of the time I’m going to go to the left and the other 20 percent I’m going to hit to the right.’ I swear to you, I cannot make this stuff up.”
Before leaving the stage to another long standing ovation, Lasorda spoke directly to the BCC players, citing the opportunity they had to play baseball while receiving an education.
“You have gotta pay the price and play for the name on the front of the jersey and not the name on the back,” he said. “Success only comes by the avenue of hard work. That’s the way it has to be.”
Joel Willits can be reached at 425-453-5045 or at jwillits@bellevuereporter.com.
