R.I.P. Tommy Lasorda

Tommy Lasorda, who spent nine seasons with the International League’s Montreal Royals, died on Thursday night at the age of 93. Photo: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

January 8, 2020

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

Not a good day for baseball today. Tommy Lasorda has died.

The Dodgers and Montreal Expos legend passed away in hospital after suffering a sudden cardiopulmonary arrest at his home near Los Angeles.

Lasorda is best known for his long tenure as the Dodgers manager but Canadians and Montrealers will remember him for his legendary time with the Royals’ triple-A team. Lasorda was a lefty, who pitched for the Royals from 1950 to 1955 and then again from 1958 to 1960. His career record with Montreal was eye-catching. He was 107-57 and he helped the Royals to five league championships.

His best records with Montreal were 17-8 in 1953 and 18-6 in 1958. Based on his time with the Royals, he was elected into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

As Jason Turbow revealed in his Dodgers book They Bled Blue, Lasorda did more than just pitch for the Royals.

When he wasn’t pitching, Lasorda coached first base, he ran the pitchers in the outfield, he was the team’s travelling secretary, looking after plane and train trips, and he handed out meal money. No wonder all of this activity helped him as a leader when he was elevated to become Walter Alston’s replacement as Los Angeles manager.

Lasorda was even controversial in his time with Montreal, even to the point of taking a foul ball while he was coaching first and firing it back at the legs of the opposing pitcher, starting a donnybrook. Often, Lasorda’s wife Jo wouldn’t say goodbye to him as he left for the ballpark or a road trip. She would merely say, “Please, Tommy, don’t start any fights.’’

When he was born, Lasorda was found to have a spot on his heart but it was really a Dodgers logo. As Turbow points out in the book, some stories about Lasorda were tough to verify because Lasorda, more often than not, was the source.

According to Turbow, the Expos offered Lasorda “multiple years and $250,000’’ to be their manager in the mid-1970s. Depending on who you talk to, Lasorda was close to signing with the Expos but that Dodgers logo on his heart won him over.

Lasorda was the manager when the Dodgers broke the hearts of the Expos and their fans by beating them out in the National League Championship Series in 1981.

Lasorda spent more than 70 years in the Dodgers organization.