Next You’re Going to Tell Us He Doesn’t Bleed Dodger Blue

Things Tom Lasorda will and won’t mention at the Hall of Fame induction:

Will mention that he would often motivate players by coaching third base. . . . Won’t mention that 95% of those games were on national TV.

Will mention that as a man in baseball, he lived the life of a king. . . . Won’t mention his opinion of Kingman’s performance.

Will mention the words “tremendous” and “outstanding” four times each. . . . Won’t mention that four times, he was caught on film asleep in the dugout.

Will mention that after his heart attack, Peter O’Malley told him he had a job in the dugout if he went down and put on a uniform. . . . Won’t mention O’Malley was pointing to the security guard’s uniform.

MARK BERNSTEIN

Los Angeles

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All those stories that dotted Tom Lasorda’s career remind me of the urban myths--you know, stories about alligators in the sewer or ghostly hitch-hikers, that always happen to someone else.

Lasorda brags about sending peanuts to the bullpen and then fining people for eating them. Give me one name. He claims he accused an opposing pitcher of scuffing the ball but threw the ball into the dugout to eliminate the evidence. Who was the pitcher?

Tom Lasorda is only in the Hall of Fame because he knew how to work sportswriters. He had winning records six of his first eight full seasons, then had losing records four times--including a 99-loss year in 1992--and one .500 year in his last 10 full seasons.

I read a book on Latin baseball a few years ago in which Lasorda claimed that an umpire in Cuba pulled a gun on him. Yeah, right. Forty years later, maybe those stories sound good at a Friars’ Club dinner, but they still sound more like folklore than baseball.

NATE GROSSMAN

Redondo Beach