He'll manage; how will Tommy Lasorda survive living life outside the spotlight?

Sporting News, The, Feb 10, 1997 by Michael P. Geffner

It's last July, late on a Wednesday afternoon at Dodger Stadium, and Tommy Lasorda, knees bowed almost to the breaking point by arthritis, is waddling around his old manager's office for one of the last times, trying, like some penguin on speed, to get dressed -- into his civvies now -- for the night game against the Marlins.

But, for Lasorda, it's just not happening quickly enough. In fact nearly a half-hour after popping out from one of the shortest showers in history, he finds himself in nothing more than an unbuttoned white shirt blue-striped boxer shorts, black shoes and navy blue socks piffled way up the calves.

And he's checking his watch at every turn.

The telephone is what it is mostly. It won't stop ringing. It has been that way since his Monday afternoon news conference, which struck LA like something with a Richter level. And today, the calls have been coming every 10 minutes or so. Which, of course, is what's supposed to happen when the most famous manager in baseball, nearly a month after a heart attack and angioplasty, suddenly changes his mind at the last second and decides not to return triumphantly but to step down after 20 years.

Stiff, Lasorda wants so desperately to get upstairs he's downright itchy about it. To get there early enough before the start of the game to do what he needs to do right now. Like hug old friends into warm embrace and kiss their cheeks, and pat the backs of his gazillion acquaintances; and shake the endless extended hands of even those he doesn't know@ and, in the press box, shoot the breeze with the writers again, just for old time's sake; and playfully yell down at the umpires from the owner's box, eventually cracking this huge smile; and, yes, especially this, to wave to the fans in the stands, who can't seem to get enough of him and he of them, working them, like a veteran stage performer, to the point where they can't take it anymore, where they can't help but stand and clap and chant, "Tom-my! ... Tom-my! ... Tom-my!"

No, Lasorda wouldn't want to miss this time for the world.

"He still enjoys being Tommy Lasorda," Lasorda's friend and local sportscaster Larry Kahn would say that night. He genuinely loves the crowd, and he loves being the center of attention."

So when the phone rings again, just as he clasps the first button of his shirt Lasorda snatches the receiver as if he wants to strangle it. But then, after making out the voice, he brightens into this toothy smile and assumes a voice just short of a scream.

Chuck Daly? My God!" pipes Lasorda, always a sucker for a famous name. "Oh, I'm feeling great, Chuck, I really am. I'm in great shape, just terrific. In fact, I saw my heart pumping on the ultrasound the other day, and it was gushing out blood like one of those Texas oil wells. ... Yeah, Chuck, I feel I made the right decision, too. Well, you know, you've been through this. ... Oh, thanks, Chuck, I really appreciate that. ... Take care, kid."

"It's unbelievable," he says softly now, turning to me in an eyeblink after hanging up. "That was Chuck Daly calling from the Olympics in Atlanta. I mean, it brings a tear to your eye to see how many people care about you like this. It really does. I can't believe the reaction from all across the country. It's overwhelming. And these last couple of days, I've been getting choked up like crazy. And yet, you could never knock a tear out of me. I mean, you wouldn't believe who's called me these past two days." He puts out one of his meaty hands and starts counting off with his fingers. Ted Williams called yesterday. Bob Dole. Sinatra. Rickles. Milton Berle. Joe Torre. Cardinal Mahoney. And today, it was Mike Fratello and Chuck Tanner and Don Zimmer and ... well, I can go on and on." These, of course, are also just a few of the hundreds of people whose framed, smiling photographs adorn virtually every nook of the wood-paneled walls of Lasorda's most famous office, the one, most notably, with The Sinatra Wall; waiting purposely until a week later, though, with the Dodgers safely on the road, he will quietly and unhurriedly pack all of these many celebrity faces, as wen as the rest of his two decades of odds and ends and assorted junk, into no fewer than 50 big cardboard boxes. Which comes down to about a box for each year he has been in pro ball.

"Who knows, maybe if I didn't have some thing like my heart attack, and if I didn't leave like I did, I would've never seen all this love and warmth from all these people. At least I got to see it while I was alive. Some people never get the chance to experience that." And then he stops, locking onto me with unshakable gaze from those big, puffy, sad-dog blue eyes of his, not saying a word. It's only when he senses that his dramatic effect has reach its peak that at he says in what feels like minutes later but is actually only seconds: You know what this whole thing was, don't you? Well, let me tell you what it was: It was a blessing man. And it was also a warning. And a lot of guys don't get a warning."