Tag Archives: tommy lasorda

Tommy Lasorda Takes His Ball and Goes Home

lasorda.jpgBaseball is America’s game! It doesn’t belong to the Italians or the Cubans or the Koreans or the Japanese. Especially not the Japanese! The very thought of them playing our game makes me sick to my stomach!

And the Dutch! God, I hate the Dutch! I hate tulips! I hate land below sea level! Screw them and their stupid wooden shoes! Those guys wear wooden shoes, right?

I feel so strongly about this, I’m gonna use my time machine. Oh yeah, I have a time machine. You get a free time machine whenever you’re inducted into the Hall of Fame.

You know who invented it? Don Drysdale. Not only are Dodgers the best team in the world, but they’ve broken the time/space continuum!

Anyway, I’m gonna use my time machine and get ridda every player I ever had who wasn’t American. Fernando Valenzuela, get lost! I know you won me a World Series in 1981, but I don’t care. Get American or get off my team!

Davey Lopes, cornerstone of my infield for a decade: hit the road! I don’t care if you were born in Rhode Island. That’s a foreign name, pal! I ain’t taking any chances!

Same goes for Ron Cey. That name sounds a little too Chinese for my liking. People used to call you The Penguin–penguins ain’t American, either. Get outta my sight!

Steve Garvey–probably American. But he went to play for the Padres, which is a Spanish word. Good enough for me! Scram, ya commie!

Once I get rid of all these un-American types, I’ll win even more World Series! Cuz my lineups won’t be polluted by these stupid foreign types! Those guys should stick to their own sports like soccer or bocce or whatever the hell it is those people play!

Then, I’ll go back to 1972 and warn Nixon about Watergate, and beat Woodward and Bernstein with a tire iron. No one takes down my favorite president! Nixon will be so grateful he’ll finally grant me my greatest wish: to see America’s official flower changed to fettuccine.

Then, I’ll go back to 1955 and make Jayne Mansfield fall in love with me. How? I have my ways. Most of them involve pasta.

Then, I’ll go back to 1933 and kill Hitler! But not before I find out where he hid the Ark of the Covenant!

Then, I’ll probably take a nap. Other than the time machine, sleep is the best way to escape this horrible, horrible modern world!

Pointless Nostalgia Pt. 1 – The 1988 TWIB Spring Training Special

New Site Update: Don’t bother clicking on any of them YouTube links below, ‘cuz they ain’t gonna work. This post is here for historic purposes only. I’m hoping to get the non-baseball stuff reposted at some point, but there’s so much stuff to do here that I would not hold my breath.

Update 02.16.07: Deadspin gave a shoutout to this post, which was quite awesome of them. Unfortunately, I think that attention attracted the decidedly unawesome attention of MLB Advanced Media, who sent me a copyright infringement notice via YouTube. I totally understand that we have to respect MLB’s intellectual rights. After all, I wouldn’t want to interfere with the inevitable theatrical release and DVD transfer of a spring training preview from 19-friggin-88. *sigh*

The Wife wants it on record that she said MLB would crack the whip on me. I doubted her. “Why the eff would MLB give two shits about a spring training preview from 19 years ago?” She is less naïve than I, I suppose. Mea culpa.

Long story short, I’m afraid I had to remove said video clips. I’ve left the rest of the post as is so you can imagine the anachronistic hilarity. Also, the old ads are still viewable, as long as no one rats on me to the Gibraltar singer with the White Afro.

* * *

I find the days following a big snowstorm to be worse than the actually event. The roads are a mess and they’re filled with angry, dirty piles of plowed snow. You need a canoe to cross most intersections thanks to the enormous lakes of smashed melted snow that ebb at every street corner. And everyone in the city is really pissed off. Usually, you think a sweaty day is the kind that gets folks all hot and bothered. But climes like this can be just as bad for the collective mood. After you’ve been smashed against a thousand other dripping, angry commuters on the bus and/or train, you’re just as ready to start a fistfight as you’d be during an August heat wave.

No matter. My thoughts are warm, because pitchers and catchers have
started to report to Florida. I’m also told that there are some insane
teams that train in Arizona. I can neither confirm nor deny this.

On Friday, the Mets will be in Port St. Lucie (at least the ones that pitch and catch) and we will be that much closer to Opening Day. An Opening Day when the team will have to watch the 83-win Cardinals get their World Series rings. Hopefully, that will get their blood boiling to set up an ’86-like rampage through the National League. I don’t ask for much from the universe, but can Jose Reyes’ first hit of the year be a line drive off of Albert Pujols’ knee? Or at least Scott Spiezio’s chin-snatch? I thank you in advance, unseen powers.

Continue reading Pointless Nostalgia Pt. 1 – The 1988 TWIB Spring Training Special