The Griddle: Book Review: ‘I Live for This!’ by Bill Plaschke with Tommy Lasorda

Crank up the HEPA air purification system…as Bob T. checks out the Lasorda-Plaschke book.

Plaschke depicts the 2000 Olympics as one of Lasorda’s shining moments as he rode a hastily prepared team of minor leaguers to a surprising gold medal win over Cuba. But in the book, Lasorda comes across as a prototypical “Ugly American” who tries to intimidate the opposing teams by encouraging rough play and continually baiting the umpires. In the gold medal game, Lasorda refused to let his pitching coach, Phil Regan, tell him what starter Ben Sheets’s pitch count was. Lasorda was going to leave him out there until the game was over. (I couldn’t find the pitch count, but Sheets threw a four-hit shutout and got a lot of ground ball outs, so it likely wasn’t too high.)

...And yet through it all, Lasorda remains a Dodger. He claims to value loyalty more than any other quality and he claims that’s why he’s been paid by the Dodgers for most of his adult life. Lasorda says he is loyal to the Dodgers above just about everything else. But is Lasorda loyal to the Dodgers or is he just a guy who knows how to survive? Is he “baseball’s last true believer” as the subtitle of the book implies or is he the ultimate politician? Plaschke doesn’t answer this question. He’s too busy admiring the façade that is Tommy Lasorda to find out.

BTW…Sheets pitch count was 103 in the gold medal game.