Dodgers: 10 greatest Tommy Lasorda moments of all time

Celebrate the life of Dodgers legend Tommy Lasorda with his most passionate moments.

Nobody believed in the Dodgers quite like Tommy Lasorda, and his passion and energy may remain unmatched for as long as baseball is played.

The Hall of Fame manager and Dodger Blue bleeder passed away after a long hospital stay on Friday morning at the age of 93, and the reaction to his death featured a wave of adoration. After all, no one was quite like Lasorda, who packed an awful lot of life into an extended nine-decade package. He even spent one of his final public moments rooting on the Dodgers at their most recent World Series win, removing the burden on the franchise which it had held since Lasorda’s ’88 bunch upset the Oakland A’s (in a sweep) and crowned Tinseltown as “titletown” once more.

In an effort to remember Lasorda the way he deserves to be, we’ve wrapped up the moments of underdog fire, playfulness, and victorious energy that best define his six decades with the Dodgers organization.

We’ll never forget any bit about him, and perhaps these videos will help.

10. Lasorda’s Victory Speech After Dodgers’ 1988 World Series Win

Tommy Lasorda never stopped believing in the Dodgers.

The 1988 World Series run stands as, possibly, the defining on-field moment of Lasorda’s Dodgers career, and this powerful, champagne-soaked speech speaks for itself.

Lasorda had spent all October getting dragged, hearing about how the Orel Hershiser-led crew wasn’t quite good enough to defeat the ’88 incarnation of the 1986 championship Mets core, nor were they anywhere close to good enough to compete with Oakland’s Bash Brothers, led by Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. Especially not without a healthy Kirk Gibson.

Naturally, Tommy proved ’em wrong, beating the juggernaut Mets in seven games before sweeping the A’s. If you ever need inspiration, you won’t find much greater boisterousness than a post-victory Lasorda realizing that, yeah…he really just did that.

9. Lasorda’s Tumble at the 2001 All-Star Game

Yes, we had to do it. We’re not particularly happy about it, either. But it’s what the people want.

Since Lasorda laughed it off (phew), we can, too.

At the time, the 73-year-old Dodgers legend was being honored as the National League’s third base coach in a game that was sure to be remembered for many years as the final showcase for future Hall of Famers Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn.

Yet somehow the enduring image from the game is an upended Lasorda, thrown to the ground in the heat of the moment by an errant Vladimir Guerrero bat.

As harrowing now as it was then.

Luckily, Lasorda could dish it out as well as he could take it, and the National League dugout had several innings’ worth of fun left with the legend after it was clear he’d escaped without any bodily harm.

8. Tommy Lasorda Takes Down the Philly Phanatic

There was only room for one boisterous fellow with a pot belly on the field at one time when Tommy Lasorda was around and at his peak, and the Philly Phanatic learned that lesson the hard way one day on the scalding hot Veterans Stadium turf.

Lasorda clearly had enough of the green fella’s antics long before he reached his boiling point, but when the time was right, he unleashed the full fury of his fists on a costumed man who probably wished he’d simply gone to Florida to be Goofy or Mickey instead.

Don’t get on Lasorda’s bad side. Don’t mock him. Don’t wear a sweaty suit of fur armor while you do it.

You’ll get decked.

And speaking of confrontations with mascots that ended in Lasorda’s personal win column…

7. Lasorda Gets Montreal’s Mascot Ejected

You can count the number of managers on one hand who’ve ever gotten an opposing mascot ejected from a game on the mascot’s home turf.

In fact, I’d wager you could probably count ’em on one Dodger Blue finger.

During a marathon in Montreal on Aug. 23, 1989, Lasorda got chippy with the Expos’ orange prankster known as Youppi!, raising a stink about the mascot clomping around on his dugout roof during a scoreless game.

A few innings later when the mischief maker returned wearing pajamas and a night cap, Lasorda emerged from the dugout to fume at him some more (or is that fumé en Français?), and umpire Bob Davidson tossed the costumed crusader from the game.

The Dodgers eventually won 1-0 in 22 innings, and the costumed crusader wandered back into the night to thunderous applause. You just can’t exterminate these things.

As the man in the suit, Claude Hubert, related years later, it may have been a misunderstanding:

“Dodgers coach Tommy Lasorda came out and the first thing he saw was me. I explained that it wasn’t me, it was the fans,” Hubert continued. “He understood, but the third-base umpire thought he was yelling at me, so he said ‘Youppi!, get out of the game.’ ”

Yeah. Sure, dude. Excuses, excuses.

6. Lasorda vs. Reggie Jackson’s Hip Check, 1978

Game 4 of the 1978 World Series turned in the Yankees’ favor, as things so often did in those days, based on a brutally bad umpiring decision in the home team’s direction.

While Tommy Lasorda couldn’t reverse the call simply by being blustery, he did rant and rave and make his feelings well known, creating an all-time moment.

An errant throw, supposedly, by the Dodgers allowed the Yankees to score a key run. In actuality, though, Yanks slugger Reggie Jackson impeded the play by sticking his hip into play, deflecting the ball before playing dumb.

If you know Lasorda, you know he did not take this well.

All these years later, we have empirical evidence that our manager was on the right side of history.

5. Lasorda Shares His Sense of Humor

There are hundreds of documented examples of Tommy Lasorda being the funniest man in the room, a phenomenon that hasn’t dissipated at all in recent years — in fact, the man crossed over and appealed to the current generation with his appearance on Barstool’s “Pardon My Take” podcast in recent years.

Always quick with a comeback or a quip, we present this 1984 example of Lasorda recalling the “funniest joke he’d ever heard” for a television special.

Hollywood his whole life, Lasorda’s on-screen career includes cameos in “Hart to Hart,” “Simon & Simon,” Rodney Dangerfield’s “Ladybugs,” and “Everybody Loves Raymond”.

Yes, the man loved to ham it up, and the examples are nearly endless.

4. Dodgers Win 1981 World Series

It’s always fun to kick the Yankees’ butts.

And it’s especially fun to do it in the Bronx, where their fans have to watch every minute of the reverse domination.

These are the iron-clad rules of baseball, and Lasorda let quite a bit of weight off his back when he avenged his two World Series defeats in 1977 and 1978 at the Bombers’ expense with a final victory in Game 6 of the 1981 World Series.

His celebration after the final out — which secured his first ring — tells the whole story.

And that’s the legendary Bob Watson with the final out, too! There’s something about watching those pinstripes come up lame that’s especially satisfying.

LA’s clinching victory came when Yankees manager Bob Lemon removed starter Tommy John for a pinch-hitter in the fourth inning, trusting the bullpen — which proved to be a catastrophic mistake in an eventual 9-2 loss.

Lasorda would never.

2. Tommy Lasorda Makes the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1997

Just one year after his retirement in 1996, Lasorda ascended to a well-earned place among the game’s elite in Cooperstown in 1997.

No need for a five-year waiting period. The Hall decided they needed Lasorda in the fraternity right away.

That Class of ’97 included fellow recently deceased icon Phil Niekro, as well as White Sox star Nellie Fox and Negro League standout Willie Wells. Lasorda woke the weekend up with his speech, which encapsulates exactly why he’s been so beloved for so long.

And yes, he was nervous, which we can’t imagine happened very often in the 52 years between his departure for the minor leagues and this high honor.

Job well done, Tommy.

1. Sending Kirk Gibson to Bat in Game 1, 1988 World Series

The Dodgers don’t win the 1988 World Series without a strike of Tommy Lasorda’s ingenuity.

One at-bat. That’s all Tommy Lasorda asked for from the 1988 MVP Kirk Gibson, who would surely have been available for dozens more if his body had allowed for it.

In what ended up as Gibson’s only appearance of the ’88 World Series, Lasorda sent him to the plate against A’s superstar closer Dennis Eckersley with a chance to win the game with one swing of the bat.

It took several agonizing swings before Gibson finally stepped into one and sent the whirling baseball deep into the night. Vin Scully’s call, paired with Lasorda’s exuberance and Gibson’s fist pumps, make this the ultimate baseball clip.

This will never be topped, and we will never forget the man responsible for giving Gibby the go-ahead.

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