Former L.A. Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda dies at 93, team announces
Tommy Lasorda, who earned a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame for his 21 seasons as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, died Thursday night at age 93, the team announced on Friday.
The Dodgers on Tuesday said that Lasorda, who had been hospitalized since the middle of November — some of that time in intensive care — had been released from the Orange County hospital.
Lasorda had long suffered from heart problems since his 1996 retirement from coaching following a heart attack, ESPN reported. He had another heart attack in 2012.
Lasorda managed the Dodgers from 1976 to 1996, during which time the team won two World Series in 1981 and 1988, USA Today reported. He was in the stands for the team’s Oct. 27 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2020 World Series.
He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997 and had been the sport’s oldest living hall of famer, according to the publication.
In addition to the two World Series titles, Lasorda won 1,599 games and four National League pennants with the Dodgers, KTTV reported.
“There may not have been a more colorful character in Dodgers history,” said the Los Angeles Times of Lasorda in a 2018 roundup of the Top 25 Dodgers of all time.
“There are three types of baseball players: Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who wonder, ‘What happened?’” Lasorda once said, according to the publication.
In 1988, Lasorda charged the ballfield to attack the Philly Phanatic while the Philladelphia team’s mascot was performing “not-so-flattering impressions of Lasorda and then beating up and pretending to defecate on a stuffed dummy made to look like the Dodgers manager,” according to Bleacher Report.
Lasorda threw the Phanatic to the ground, then punched him and pummeled him with the dummy before returning to the Dodgers dugout, according to the publication.
The longtime Dodgers manager was known for his many quotes about the game, according to DodgersNation.com, which collected a sampling of his commentary.
“About the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure,” Lasorda once said about sports.
“I bleed Dodger blue and when I die, I’m going to the big Dodger in the sky,” Lasorda once said, according to the site.
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 8:55 AM.