Baseball History Comes Alive Now Ranked #2 by Feedspot Among All Internet Baseball History Websites and Blogs!
Guest Submissions from Our Readers Always Welcome!
As a Free Bonus for subscribing, you’ll get instant access to my two Special Reports: Memorable World Series Moments and Gary’s Handy Dandy World Series Reference Guide!
Tommy Lasorda Photo Gallery
Click on any image below to see photos in full size and to start Photo Gallery:
Tommy Lasorda’s “Wild” First Major League Inning (And I Do Mean Wild!)
“I bleed Dodger Blue…and when I die I’m going to the Big Dodger in the sky!” –Tommy Lasorda
“Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it; not hard enough and it flies away.” -Tommy Lasorda
Not many fans realize that Tommy Lasorda was a great minor league pitcher, but on the major league level…well, not so hot. I guess we could say the first inning of Tommy’s very first game was an omen of things to come. Unfortunately, it proved to be a bad omen…
Rookie Tommy Lasorda took the mound at Ebbets Field almost sixty-seven years ago, May 5, 1955, for his first major league start. Maybe we can just write it off as “first innings jitters,” or something like that. For whatever reason, Tommy proceeded to tie a record, but I’m sure it’s not one he was proud of: Tommy threw not one…not two…but three (!) wild pitches in his very first inning!
And then just to add insult to injury (or perhaps better, “injury to insult”), Tommy got spiked by the Cardinals’ Wally Moon covering the plate after uncorking one of his three wild pitches! He was in the showers after one inning. All in all, a rather inauspicious start for the future Hall-of-Fame manager.
However, there were some bright spots: Tommy recorded two strikeouts in the inning, including whiffing the great Stan Musial as his first major league K. And even though Tommy was long-gone from the game, the Dodgers prevailed 4-3. “The Bums” went on to win the pennant and World Series in 1955. Tommy got a ring even though he didn’t play in the series.
Tommy’s Major League Career
Tommy spent parts of 14 seasons in the minors and posted a 136-104 record (.567) over 406 games, and 2166.2 innings, with100 complete games. In the majors, he played three years (1954-’56) with the Brooklyn Dodgers (1954-’55), and the Kansas City Athletics (1956). Tommy went 0-4 with a 6.48 ERA over 58.3 innings in 26 games.
Of course, it’s as a highly successful manager where Tommy earned his Hall-of-Fame credentials. Tommy was at the Dodger helm for 20 seasons, with 3,041 games under his ample belt. He compiled a 1599-1439 record (.526). His 1599 wins rank 20th all-time. Tommy’s Dodger teams won four pennants, eight divisional titles, and two World Series championships (1981 and ’88).
He was a two-time Manager of the Year (1983 and ’88), and his #2 has been retired by the Dodgers. In 2009, he marked his sixth decade in one capacity or another with the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers organization, the longest non-continuous (he played one season with the Kansas City Athletics) tenure anyone has had with the team, edging Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully by a single season. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a manager in 1997.
Tommy Lasorda, one of the most beloved figures in the game and a wonderful baseball ambassador, sadly passed away on January 7, 2021. His wife of 71 years, Jo, passed away eight months later on September 21. Here’s a link to a tribute to Tommy I wrote at the time of his passing.
Gary Livacari
Subscribe to our website, “Baseball History Comes Alive!” with over 1200 fully categorized baseball essays and photo galleries, now surpassing the 700K hits mark at 758K hits: www.baseballhistorycomesalive.com
Information: Excerpts edited from Tommy Lasorda Wikipedia page
Take a guess at this week’s Mystery Player
Thank you so much for the article about Tommy, my personal hero. Baseball is not quite the same without him. I was lucky enough to meet him at the Dodgers Spring training in 2020 before it shut down because of covid. He was everything and more than I expected and very friendly and cordial. God bless you Tommy we will always remember you fondly. Dennis Friedenbloom
Thanks Dennis, that’s a great tribute to Tommy…and I agree with you that the baseball world is not the same without him.
Tommy was baseball’s GREATEST ambassador! Legendary. The game is not the same without him. I loved the guy.
Okay, Gary.. I’ll let you get away with the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers thing since Tommy Lasorda actually pitched for Brooklyn. But, you know it’s a pet peeve of mine and it still rankles. (for those who missed it, I’m a Brooklyn girl, born and bred. When the Dodgers went west, that was the end of the Brooklyn Dodgers. We expunged them from our lives and never considered them again in any way as being “Brooklyn.”)
I’m afraid baseball took a backseat in my life in 1955. I was a new wife and an expectant mother. My oldest son was born October 8th. But, oh boy, the joy of finally beating the Yankees to win the World Series!!!! WOW. One of the highlights of my life.
Regards,
Joan
Hi Joan – I never got to Ebbets Field. I was 6 when they left (born and raised in Newark, NJ) but became a Dodger fan when I saw my first game the following year in LA, visiting my Mother’s family. Joan, please tell me your favorite thing(s) about that ballpark. Thanks, Jim
Like the picture of Tommy standing next to the big chalkboard in his Montreal uniform. Believe he was celebrating his 100th win with that team. He was a good minor leaguer, especially with the Montreal Royals.
I never got the chance to ask Tommy if the AL expansion Angels or Senators of ’61 showed any interest in him. Also the Mets and Colt .45’s in ’62 but maybe the latter were too late. Actually their respective drafts would have been in the winters of ’60 and ’61 so it would have been possible.
Hi James:
I’d love to talk about Ebbets Field. I wish I could remember more about the physical stadium, but it’s the emotions the name conjures up in me that I remember best. In case you missed it, let me tell you how I got to be a fan. I was sick in bed with a 104 degree fever on a Sunday afternoon. In 1947 Sunday radio consisted of religious, classical music or news type programming and a baseball game. The first three choices didn’t hold much appeal for a ten-year old, so knowing not very much about the game, I listened to a man named Red Barber describe this fascinating battle between pitchers and batters; hitters and fielders and two teams who wanted to out score each other. Gil Hodges hit two home runs and became my instant favorite.
I got hooked by radio, (we were two years away from our first TV set) but I couldn’t wait to see a game. Grand stand tickets cost $1.25, but there was a lovely thing called “ladies day” when girls paid 50 cents for a grandstand ticket. I had to take a one hour bus ride then walk two v e r y long blocks to get to Ebbets. Can you believe there was once a time a ten-year old girl could ride a bus an hour away from home and go to a ballgame alone and never have to worry about her safety? Anyway, approaching the stadium for the first time was impressive for me. It only held around 36,000 thousand people. To me that was a whole lot of people. If you know what the Mets citifeld looks like, that’s what Ebbets looked like. There was a man named Happy Felton. He had a show called Happy Felton’s Knothole Gang. Every Saturday he would choose three boys to “play” for one of the Dodgers at his position. The player would pick the boy he thought was the best and he got something. I don’t remember what it was. After that, we’d all sit in a special section in the bleachers. We each wore a badge that was a picture of a knothole with an eye in it.
I started high school when I was thirteen. I found a friend who lived in my neighborhood and went to the same high school I attended. It was only a few blocks from Ebbets, so we walked there to see weekday ladies day games. Her favorite player was third baseman, Billy Cox. We usually sat behind third. I could look across the diamond right at Gil Hodges.
By today’s standards Ebbets Field was almost mini sized. I went to about twenty games a year. I have two ticket stubs to the last game played there.
I hope I’ve given you a little flavor of the place. I had a lot of fun remembering.
Kind regards,
Joan
Thanks Joan for sharing the great remembrances. I always love the personal stuff like this…
Beautiful story Joan. Thanks so much.
Were you at the last game at Ebbets? Any recollections? I would love to hear them.
I was six when the Dodgers left, I guess a little too young for my Dad to take me to a game but he did the following summer in LA. I remember sitting so far up in the LA Coliseum that the players looked like ants.
I wonder if Robert Moses was more accommodating, would O’Malley have stayed or was Walter bluffing all along with his proposed domed ballpark on the site of what is now the Barclays Arena?
Will we ever know the truth?
What do you think Joan?
Jim
What a great article about Tommy Lasorda. It is so incredible yet heartwarming to see how a player could achieve such greatness after such an inauspicious beginning. Such a great story.
Thanks for the kind words Steve! What a wonderful ambassador for the game he was. When he passed away, I think he took a little bit of all of us with him.
Hi Jim:
Thanks for your kind words.
I did not attend the game. My parents did. They felt we all had been with them through joy and sorrow and wanted to say a last goodbye. To tell the whole truth, I still couldn’t believe they were really going to do it. How could the Brooklyn Dodgers leave Brooklyn? That disbelief turned to anger and dosapointment which were directed at Walter O’Malley for putting money over loyalty. ( I was unaware of Jacob Riis’ master building plan at the time.) I was’t alone in this. Most of the people I knew, once the sadness passed, got ticked off. We turned our backs on the Dodgers as they had turned on Brooklyn. Hence, my kerfuffle with Gary referring to that team as the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers. There is no such team. Once they left Brooklyn the ceased to deserve that name. They became and are the LA Dodgers. People don’t refer to the NY/San Francisco Giants or the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves. Why the dubious distinction of the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers? I guess you can tell after all these years, I’m still mad.
While we’re talking about it, the men who made up the team didn’t want this move either. In those days ball players were guys who lived next door who just happened to play baseball for a living. They made money; not MONEY. They didn’t live in palaces behind entourages and armed guards. They supplemented their salaries with things like personal appearances. That’s how I got to meet my hero, Gil Hodges. There’s a major thoroughfare running through the heart of Brooklyn called Flatbush Avenue. It is, or possibly was, (I haven’t lived there in sixty plus years so I don’t really know. But back then it was.) All the ground floor buildings along the miles long streets were commercial. Some of them were appliance stores. They would have sales events and would hire ball players for a day to meet the people who came in and to sign autographs. I don’t remember if it was a Saturday or a Sunday but I do remember it was raining lightly all day long. I had purchased a package of twenty-five 8X10s of the team at Ebbets Field. I’m not sure, but I think a pitcher named Rex Barney appeared with Gil that day. I brought their pictures with me and each signed his for me. By the way that pack of pictures were their official individual team portraits. It cost $1.00. Back then, it was one of the highlights of my young life.
Good grief. I’m on my way to writing a book here. ENOUGH.
Kind regards,
Joan
Thanks again Joan. I loved your stories. Great memories.
That last game, attended by only a little over 6,000 fans, had to be so sad. Your parents were very loyal, for sure.
I listen to old taped broadcasts of Brooklyn Dodger games. The voices of Scully, Doggett and Helfer plus the sounds of the fans and vendors so peacefully put me to sleep on many a night and dream of a time and place that was so special.
In memory of Gil,
Jim
Hi Jim:
Thanks for your kind words.
I can’t begin to tell you how sad it was. It was like finding out a universal truth was a lie. As if a man came home one day and told his wife he was in love with someone else and was leaving his family to start a new one somewhere else. It felt like such a huge betrayal. Believe me, I know how overly dramatic this sounds, but it was how we felt. I didn’t know how ticked I still am about it until I started remembering. This doesn’t mean I wish any ill will on the LA Dodgers. They are heroes to their fans and deserve their love and allegience. They just are not the Brooklyn Dodgers any more…..
With regard to Vin Scully, he was a rookie broadcaster in Brooklyn. Red Barber was the voice of the Dodgers, then. He had the smoothest southern accent and a slew of euphemisms that were like silk in your ears. I remember the hitter or a batter who had a clear advantage was “sitting in the catbird seat.”
Here I go writing a book again.
‘Till next time,
Joan.