Tommy Lasorda gets around. On Sunday, July 8, the 73-year-old former Los Angeles Dodgers manager was at the Osaka Dome, "producing" an American ballpark event for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, wolfing down some Dodger Dogs and doing a TV interview. Two days later, "Tumblin' Tommy" was coaching third base for the National League in this year's MLB All-Star Game at Safeco Field in Seattle.
If you saw the All-Star Game or any of its highlights (lowlights?) on TV, you watched Lasorda take that tumble after being hit by a broken bat barrel flung by Vladimir Guerrero of the Montreal Expos. Luckily, he was unhurt, and it's a good thing, because Lasorda has been one of the most lovable characters in baseball over the past 25 years. He's also one who loves Japan and things Japanese, from sushi to sumo, from karaoke to Kyoto, and his recent appointment as a consultant to the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes is apparently paying big dividends for the Pacific League franchise.
Lasorda's association with this country goes back a long way. I have an undated photo of him, young and slim, wearing Dodgers uniform No. 22 and posing with several Tokyo Giants coaches, apparently taken some time in the early 1960s at the Yomiuri training camp in Miyazaki, Kyushu. I imagine he was an L.A. coach then.