Monday, June 18, 2012

Vin Scully, on Tommy Lasorda's Stubbornness

Vin Scully, from Saturday's telecast:
On this day in 1992, the Dodgers were playing the Braves in Atlanta, Georgia, and when the dust finally settled, they lost a heartbreaking game, nine-eight.

Tommy Lasorda was so angry that he refused to ride the team bus. They always have a bus taking you to and from the hotel, and he would not ride it. And it was four miles from the ballpark to the hotel.

We'll tell you about it right after we look at this.

Ah, that was a night in Atlanta. Meanwhile, oh and one the count to Pierzynski. One and one.

Tommy was furious, wouldn't get on the bus, so the bus pulled away. They didn't want to, but he said I'm not getting on. So the bus left.

And Tommy started to make a four-mile walk back to the hotel.

Fouled back.

Tommy, however, always pitched batting practice, and during batting practice he took a shot off his foot, on his toe. And a four-mile walk late at night in Atlanta is tough enough, but with a bad toe, it is a very, very painful experience, as you might imagine.

And it's, you know, midnight, at least.

Chopper up the middle, it will be...no one. So Pierzynski winds up hitting it through the bookends and it's a base hit, the eighth hit for the Sox.

Where were we? Oh yeah, Tommy Lasorda's not going to ride the team bus. So he's walking and limping and it's late, twelve-thirty now, streets are deserted.

And what do you think, here comes an ambulance. And the ambulance first of all looks at a man hobbling, and then they realize, Wait a minute, that's Tommy Lasorda, the manager of the Dodgers.

So they pull over and say, Tommy, can we give you a lift?

Well, if you know Lasorda at all, his first reaction is, No. I'm walking.

So he starts to walk and the ambulance figures there's no way he's going to keep walking. So they're slowly going alongside of him, and finally, finally, Tommy decides, I'll give it up.

So he got in the ambulance and he arrived at twelve forty-five in the morning at the hotel, having lost nine-eight.

'Course if you want to give Tommy indigestion, you mention the 1992 season. The 1992 season would be the one blot on his escutcheon. That was the year the Dodgers lost ninety-nine games.

Ah, what a thoroughly forgettable year that was.

One and one the count to Alexei Ramirez....

4 comments:

Fred's Brim said...

And here's the boxscore for that embarrassment of a game. I would have been walking with Tommy after that shitshow.

I don't remember that game but this one from our fade from first a season before is still burned in my brain

Paul said...

Ahhh 1992. The LA Riots helped produce the Dodgers first and probably only 18 game homestand.

Paul said...

Well at least Sharpey had a good game. I remember he was The Dodgers only all-star that year.

Fred's Brim said...

RIP Sharpy