Name: Tommy Lasorda Collection on Letterman, 1985-2012
Uploaded: 2020-11-16T02:36:07.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tommy Lasorda Collection on Letterman, 1985-2012' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-11-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tommy Lasorda Collection on Letterman, 1985-2012' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-11-16. Transcript available.

Tommy Lasorda Collection on Letterman, 1985-2012

Okay, my next guest pitched only 26 innings of Major League Baseball, yet he
tied the
record for the most wild pitches in a single inning.
Here now is some videotape of my next guest.
He is the very successful manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and please
welcome Tommy
Lasorda.
Nice to have you in New York City.
I guess you'll pretty soon be going to spring training.
Yeah, 21st of February we leave for Vero Beach, beautiful Vero Beach, Dodger
Town.
Can't wait.
Who did you have lunch with today?
Tell me about your lunch.
Oh, I had lunch with Howard Cassell and...
Now, what was that?
Bobby Valentine.
Now, what's Howard like at lunch?
He's fantastic.
Yeah?
Yeah, just a great guy and really very, very knowledgeable.
He has a tremendous memory and really enjoyed being with him.
Yeah.
We mentioned in the introduction that you...
What was that record?
Why do you have to bring it up?
No, no, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Most wild pitches in one inning.
Now, how many pitches is that?
How many wild pitches?
Three.
I thought the catcher did a bad job.
Yeah.
What kind of a pitcher were you, aside from occasionally having some control
problems?
Very little ability and a lot of heart.
Yeah.
Anybody could win when you have the stuff of a Koufax or a Drysdale.
Try to win with the stuff that I had.
Yeah.
That was tough.
What was your lifetime record?
Where?
Your combined record.
Say you're...
Well, in Montreal.
I pitched in Montreal for quite a few years, and I won 125 games up there and
five that
I was leading going into the fifth inning that was snowed out.
And what was your major league record?
Let's talk about Howie.
Howie got this crowd loosened up for us.
No, no.
It was what?
So, no.
But you were only...
You only pitched.
Oh, and four.
Okay.
Is that what you want me to say, David?
You got it.
Very embarrassing.
Okay.
Now, what kind of a manager are you now?
How do you motivate your players?
What do you do as a manager?
What's the single most important thing you have to do now, and how do you do it?
Well, I think the most important thing as a manager, you have to be able to
extract
all of the ability that you have within your players.
If you can get every player on your ball club, given that everything they have,
and if you
can get them believing in themselves, and you can get them to believe that they
are playing
for the greatest organization in baseball, the Dodgers, then you're going to be
tough to beat.
I try to convince them that if you take 25 players, a manager, and a coaching
staff in
an organization, and you all get on one end of a rope and you pull together,
you can pull
the rest of the clubs with you.
But if 10 get on one end, and the rest get on the other end, all you'll do is
pull against
yourself.
Nationalism wins trophies.
Teamwork wins pennants.
Now, what about when a guy is going to be traded?
Now, do you tell him that he's done?
Do you tell him that he's going down to the major, at the minors, or that he's
going somewhere
else?
Yes, that's my job.
That's my job, yes.
And how do you do that?
Is that tough?
Well, it's tough.
You call him in, and you tell him, and it's very difficult, because I can
remember many
times when I was asked to leave the major league club to go back to the minors.
So I certainly know how they feel.
But I'm going to tell you something.
You talk about an 0-4 record.
Now, you're sensitive about that, aren't you?
But I'm going to tell you my claim to fame in baseball.
All right.
Okay?
In 1955, I was with the then Brooklyn Dodgers, and in July, we were enjoying a
14-game lead
when I was summoned into the office of Buzzy Bavese, who was then the general
manager.
And he said, Tom, I got bad news.
I said, what's wrong, Buzzy?
One of your relatives sick?
And he said, no, I'm going to have to send you back to Montreal, which was our
AAA club at
the time.
I said, wait a minute, Buzzy, what do I have to do to prove to you and the
manager that
I can pitch on this ball club?
In 1954, I was called up in July with 14-5.
In 53, I won 20 games.
What do I have to do to prove to you that I can pitch here?
He said, look, Tom, we must cut one man off this ball club.
He said, if you were the general manager, who would you send out?
And I, without any hesitation, I said, Koufax.
I'm serious.
This is a true story.
I said, here's a guy that couldn't hit a barn door 60 feet away with a baseball.
He was so wild.
And you mean to tell me you're going to keep Koufax and send me out?
And he said, the rules of baseball provide that if a player receives over $4,000
bonus, he
must remain on a major league club for two years.
So he says, you go and Koufax stays.
And now I can walk around and honestly say it took the greatest left-hand
pitcher in baseball
to knock me off of that Brooklyn club.
We have to do a commercial.
We'll be back with Tommy Lasorda.
All right, Tommy, you went to, how long ago did you go to the White House?
Was that this off-season or last?
Yes, I've been there about four times.
Four times?
Yeah, a couple of State Department dinners.
And then, uh...
Now, wait a minute.
What do you have to do?
I don't mean this sarcastically, but what State Department business do you have
to conduct?
I have nothing, but I was invited to two State Department dinners.
One for the president of Italy when he was here, and the other for the
president of the
Dominican Republic, but one day I had lunch with the president and some other
people, and at
the conclusion of the luncheon, Larry Speaks, who's the press secretary, asked
me if I'd
open up the briefing with the White House press, which I thought was a real
honor, because
here I am sitting next to the president, and I'm saying, oh, God, if only my
parents could
be alive to see this.
And when Larry asked me, I couldn't believe it, but I did.
And the first question that was asked of me was by Sam Donaldson, and he said,
Mr.
Well, sir, I understand you had lunch with the president.
I said, that's right.
He said, I also understand that you sat right next to the president.
I said, that's right, Mr. Donaldson.
He said, what did you and the president talk about during lunch?
I said, economics.
He said, wait a minute.
You, a manager of a major league club, talked about economics with the
president?
I said, that's right.
In fact, I told the president the story about this man who had gone to New York
to the Chase
Manhattan Bank and was causing a great deal of commotion.
He wanted to see Rockefeller, the president.
So they brought him up to his private office, and he said, what could I do for
you?
He said, I'd like to borrow $1,500.
And he laughed.
He said, take him downstairs.
And they took him to the small loans department and said to him, he said, we'd
like to borrow
$1,500.
He said, what do you have for collateral?
He said, here's the owner's card to my new Chrysler New Yorker in the front,
and here are
the keys.
If I don't bring the $1,500 back in a week, you keep the car.
So a week later, he came back.
He said, here's the $1,500.
I said, wait a minute, sir.
We've run a thorough investigation on you.
We discovered that you are one of the wealthiest men in the entire United
States.
Why would you want to borrow $1,500?
And the guy said, what was the interest for the week?
And they totaled it up and said it was $1,750.
And he gave it to them and said, wait a minute, we're confused.
Why would a man of your position in wealth want to borrow $1,500?
And the man looked at him and he says, where else could a man park his car in
New York
for one week for $17.50?
Tommy, have a real good season.
Thank you.
Good luck to you.
Come back and see us.
Have fun in Florida.
Tommy, we'll be right back.
Come on.
All right, Tommy, again, good luck to you.
Thank you for being here.
My thanks to Howie Mandel and everybody on Stupid Pet Tricks.
Tomorrow night, Terry Garr will be here, and we'll have a strobe light
demonstration with
Dr. Harold Edgerton.
You want to jot that down.
And also, McCoy Tyner will be in tomorrow night.
Have a nice evening, folks.
Go to bed.
You know what?
I don't quite get this.
I'm not what you'd say, overweight.
Would you say I'm overweight?
Absolutely not.
No, you're...
I'd like to lose like a pound and a half.
That's all.
And I'm thinking to myself, what I'm thinking is the best way to lose this
pound and a half
is just watch your diet.
Don't eat so much.
You know, eat like a pound and a half less every day of food.
And I turn on the television, and all you see are these commercials for these,
like these
powdered drink things.
You turn them into like milkshakes.
Now, here's the plan.
You take one of these milkshakes, and you have it for breakfast.
Okay?
And then you have another milkshake, and you have that for lunch.
And then for dinner, you can go nuts.
You can eat like a baboon.
And I'm thinking, now, does this make any sense?
I mean, first of all, the powder that you turn into a milkshake, it's all
chemicals.
It's all sort of some sort of mysterious enzyme chemical concoction that may or
may not be
good for you.
So I'm worried about that.
So I'm thinking...
And then plus, seriously, if you're eating two milkshakes a day, aren't you
going to gain
weight from just having the two milkshakes a day?
Seems to me.
So it doesn't make sense to me.
And it just seems like it's a scam.
They're taking advantage of people who, like me, would like to drop some weight.
And somehow, they're turning this into a multi-billion dollar business.
And they're making a lot of money on the sorrow that is overweight Americans.
You understand what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's chemicals.
First of all, we don't know.
You just get a can of dust.
That's what they give you.
And then you whip it up, and it's like it's strawberry flavored.
That's your breakfast.
And we don't know.
All right.
So maybe you're walking around, and you feel like you've got a milkshake in you.
But what other, perhaps lethal, toxic chemicals might be coursing through your
system?
Any time, Hal.
I think...
Oh!
What the hell?
Hey, geez, did you see that?
Sandbag drop.
Man.
Alive.
By all means, take your time when you're trying to kill me.
Who the hell could have been responsible?
Let me go check backstage.
Let's see here.
You know, that sandbag fell on the desk.
It could have killed me.
Now, who dropped the sandbag?
Was it you, Al?
Me?
Not me.
Joe, was it you?
No, sir.
Tommy?
Tommy Lasorda?
Slim fast user, manager of the Dodgers.
Was it you?
No.
All right.
Well, it better not happen again, okay?
All right.
Let's see if Tommy will come out and say hello.
Tommy!
Tommy, come on out here!
Come on!
Oh, come on, Tommy.
Come on out here!
Come on!
He said, you know what he said to me, Tommy Lasorda?
What?
He said, I'm not coming out.
Screw you and the Mets.
He's not even back there.
We taped that years ago.
Taped years ago.
Oh, man.
What are we doing now?
Let's, uh...
Huh?
Let's do a...
Better do a commercial, huh?
Are we...
How are we doing on time, Morty?
Huh?
Three minutes.
Well, what should we do now with this three minutes?
Do what?
Do a commercial.
We can do a commercial in three minutes.
Well, that wasn't the question exactly.
I know we can do a commercial in three minutes, but...
Huh?
You can make a call.
No, no.
We don't have time.
We don't have enough time for that.
We can go to commercial.
All right, we'll have to do a commercial, ladies and gentlemen.
Well, I'll get Tommy Lasorda for you.
We'll be right back here, kids.
Come on.
Hey, what was that, by the way?
I'm walking.
Oh.
Walking music for you.
Oh, man.
I'm telling you, Paul, you are a genius.
See that?
You see that?
Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you a little bit about this program.
Every day, a lot of very talented, hard-working men and women get together
to try and provide you with the best, the finest, most exciting television
entertainment
we can possibly slap together on short notice.
Tonight, in my heart, I feel we may have outdone ourselves.
All night, during the show, via satellite, from a swimming pool in Sou