Tommy Lasorda death: Profane Kurt Beveacqua tirade to attacking mascots, Dodgers legend had a volatile temper
Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda died Thursday morning after suffering a cardiac arrest. Ever since news of his death was shared by the Dodgers, condolence messages have been pouring as fans remember some of his best moments as a coach, and manager for the Dodgers. This also takes us back to some colouful moments in Lasorda's past when he let his temper go haywire. He said things that scandalized the baseball community and hit mascots on the pitch. In fact, if we were to list the top 20 moments baseball managers had a meltdown, two or more would definety belong to this Baseball Hall of Famer.
1. Donald Sterling controvery in 2014
In 2014, Lasorda's close friend and then Clippers owner Donald Sterling got in trouble after making some racist comments over a call to his girlfriend V. Stiviano. The recording of this was released by TMZ and in the call, Sterling berates his girlfriend for associating with Black people and didn't appreciate her inviting Earvin 'Magic' Johnson to games. These comments resulted in Sterling being banned from NBA for life and a fine of $2.5 million. In a television interview in Florida, when asked to comment regarding the controversy that his friend was embroiled in, Lasorda reportedly said, "I don’t wish that girl any bad luck,” and added, matter of factly, “But I hope she gets hit with a car.”
2. Dropping F-bombs in tirade against Kurt Beveacqua
The incident goes back to 1982 when Dodgers pitcher Tom Niedenfur was fined $500 for beaning Joe Lefebvre of San Diego Padres. A day after the incident, Lefebvre's teammate Kurt Beveacqua was quoted by the media as saying, "The guy they should have fined was the guy who ordered Niedenfur to throw at Joe... the fat little Italian." In response to this, Lasorda started in a calm manner by saying that it was terrible of Beveacqua to make such an accusation lightly. Very soon though, the response was laced with F-Bombs, and other profane words. This, however, is not the only time.
3. Attacking Philadelphia Phillies' mascot by charging at it in 1988
In 1988, the Dodgers went against the Phillies and their mascot -- Phanatic -- chose to do crude impressions of Lasorda while the game was underway. Not only that, the mascot took it a step further by pretending to defecate on a stuffed dummy which was made to look like Lasorda. The manager charged across the field, beat the Phantic with the dummy a few times before coming back to the dug out.
4. Another tirade in 1978 about Chicago Cubs slugger Dave Kingman
In 1978, the Dodgers had competed against the Chicago Cubs in a 15 innings game which was won by the Cubs after Dave Kingman hit it out of the field with three back to back home runs. So when a radio reporter Paul Olden, asked him to comment on the same, he said, "What’s my opinion of Kingman’s performance?” Lasorda said. “What the (expletive) do you think my opinion is of it? I think it was (expletive). Put that in. I don’t (expletive) care. What’s my opinion of his performance? (expletive). He beat us with three (expletive) home runs. What the (expletive) do you mean, ‘What is my opinion of his performance?’ How can you ask me a question like that? I’m (expletive) off to lose a (expletive) game, and you ask me my opinion of his performance?”
Later when asked about his tirade against Kingman's performance, Lasorda said to Los Angeles Times, "If the guy had asked it a different way, I would have been O.K. with it, but he said, ‘What is your opinion?’ That changes it. If he’d said, ‘What did he hit?’ or ‘Was he swinging right?’ that would have been different. But he said, ‘What is your opinion?’ and I proceeded to tell him."