"You lose your identity when you don't have to earn money, you know what I mean? If I go in with my head hung down when I put on my uniform, what good does it do?". Lounging on the floor. The New York Times recalled, Lasorda hugged his ballplayers, remembered their birthdays and the names of their wives and children, and exhorted them to achieve greater deeds, But few obituaries have made anything more than passing reference to Lasordas only son, Thomas C. Lasorda, Jr., who was gay. Garvey was the only major league baseball player at Wiggins's service. Jan. 8, 2021. He was generous off the field. I ask him what his dad would say if he were alive. Even more so, as society changed, and our community became more accepted and as HIV became a manageable disease, and those who fought the battle and lost their lives during the early days of the AIDS pandemic have rightly been called heroes, Lasorda never wavered. He was a very, very memorable person.. Tommy Lasordas classic rivalry with the Phillie Phanatic Baseball was meant to be fun for everyone (1988)pic.twitter.com/oI3fnTePki, IB THE GAMBLER (@incarceratedbob) January 8, 2021. He loved the Dodgers. Then the phone would ring. ", "Of course he was gay," says Jeff Kleinman, the manager of a downtown restaurant who used to travel the same club circuit as Lasorda in the early eighties. Or his tailored blue Edwardian gabardine jacket. Everybody had called Tommy Lasorda Jr. "Spunky" since before he was even born; he earned the nickname by constantly kicking while he was in his mother Jo's womb. He was preceded in death by Tommy Lasorda, Jr. who died in 1991, and the cause of his death was attributed to pneumonia. No cause of death has been given. Irregular heart rhythms, known as arrhythmias, can sometimes cause cardiac arrest, as can ventricular fibrillation, which means the hearts lower chambers suddenly start beating chaotically and dont pump blood, according to AHA. "Tommy senior is, as far as I'm concerned, a tremendous man," says Pallone. Ultimately, I wrote the piece confident that it would advance the cause. By January 2021, Jo Lasorda was at least 85 years old. The Dodgers confirmed Jo Lasorda passed away Monday night at the home in Fullerton she and Tommy shared for most of their 70-year marriage. Would love your thoughts, please comment. So was her maiden name. I could never get the image out of my mind. He was still femininethat gets in your systembut there was no lust after men.". ", "Please," says his Oscar Wilde. No vaccine. Tommy Lasorda, arguably one of the greatest managers in MLB history, died on January 7, 2021. "I cried," Tom Lasorda says quietly. As for Lasordas cause of death, he suffered sudden cardiopulmonary arrest at home at 10:09 p.m. PT on Thursday. Tommy Lasorda serving as an honorary coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2011. No way, he continued, with some expletives sprinkled in. Perhaps, some members of her family still live there. I had visited a friend at St. Vincent's who was in the terminal stages of an HIV-related illness, and smuggled in a chocolate milkshake from McDonald's for him, and fed it to him, but he couldn't keep it down. I was an encyclopedia and my young head was chock full of statistics. Now the voice grows even louder, and a few fantasy campers raise their eyebrows and turn their heads toward us. Read his obituary here and tributes from friends, fans, Hollywood and the baseball world here. He entered a rehabilitation program. The father, of course, spends his life barking and regaling, never stopping; he's baseball's oral poet, an anti-Homer. He had fond memories of their time together during and after their on-field days; Lasorda came on Pallones radio show once and told him that he should never have lost his umpiring job. No cause of death was given. His pitching is vague, at best. We just want to be human beings. Perhaps it's because that was the first time that I looked at Bean as a man, not a baseball player, and I thought he was hot. It was such a struggle between the two of them to try and balance keeping Sr.s. TOMMY : Never. One person who would not admit to this speculation, that he was gay and that he died of AIDS, was his father. "I don't know," he says. At Sunny Hills High School, in Fullerton, Calif."the most horrible nouveau riche white-bread high school in the world," recalls Cat Gwynn, a Los Angeles photographer and filmmaker and a Sunny Hills alumnaTommy Lasorda moved through the hallways with a style and a self-assurance uncommon in a man so young; you could see them from afar, Tommy and his group. Lasorda is survived by his wife of 70 years, Jo, their daughter, Laura, and granddaughter Emily Tess. Tommy Lasorda. Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) January 8, 2021. And thats what happened with Tommy., Tommy Lasordas Death Starts a Conversation About His Son, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/sports/baseball/tommy-lasorda-son.html. Tommy and his foot were a regular subject of conversation, often led by Tommy. From his friend Tommy. Tommy Lasorda -- a Dodgers legend and arguably the most famous manager in MLB history -- has died, TMZ Sports has confirmed. King's death comes five months after the deaths of his children Andy and . Tommy would call to tell Eugene he was going to buy him a gift. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and the Dodger Organization. While he was on the team, it was known that Burke was gay, and that Lasorda didn't like him because of his sexuality. Tommy Lasorda Sr., was so involved in that macho sports world, and his son was the opposite", "I was astounded at how many clothes he had. "He died of AIDS," Magno says. Penelope Spheeris met him at Club Zero. And with the younger people playing in the game, and younger people in management, that the game will change as far as openness toward the L.G.B.T.Q. His gaze skips about the roomhe always seems to be looking around for someone to greet, a hand to shake, another camper to slap another anecdote on. Tracked me down in a motel in Indiana, screamed over the phone, talked of how he thought we were friends, although our relationship had consisted of a half-dozen interviews over the years in which I quoted him and presented him in my newspaper exactly as he wanted to be presented, which did not cleave to my idea of friendship. It's funny that Tommy cites Magic, isn't it? No way. His voice was weak. daughter Laura, and a granddaughter. Pallone, who used to see Tommy Jr. at games, didnt feel like it was his place to broach the subject. ORIGINAL REPORT: Over nearly three decades, Tommy Lasordas denial of his gay sons identity has grown into legend. "That's Pete Reiser," Tom Lasorda says. Two blocks away, on Santa Monica Boulevard, at A Different Light, atop the shelves given over to books on how to manage to stay alive for another few weeks, sit a dozen clear bottles, each filled with amber fluid and a ragsymbolic Molotovs, labeled with the name of a man or a woman or a government agency that is setting back the common cause, reinforcing the stereotypes, driving the social stigmata even deeper into West Hollywood's already weakened flesh. I didn't think it'd be like that. And he never back-tracked from denying his son. Al Campanis, the Dodgers general manager at the time, offered Burke bonus money if he married something he later said was not a bribe but because the Dodgers encouraged family stability and maturity on their roster. But in the late seventies, it was a raucous, outrageous and joyous neighborhood, free of the pall that afflicted hetero Los Angeles, thronged as it was with people who'd lemminged their way out west until there was no more land, fugitives from back east. Sections of this page. When you get used to the easy life, it's hard to go out there. His clubhouse became a haunt for show-business personalities, usually of distinctly outsized demeanorSinatra, Ricklesand he himself became the beacon of a new mythology, leader of the team that played in a ballpark on a hill on a road called Elysian, perched above the downtown, high and imperious. Let's get our values in the right place. He loved Diana Ross. He could really hold his own in a group of strangers. "But I don't think it wasWhen you're that sad, you have to cover up a lot of pain. The lights for the baseball field in Caledonia, Miss. Tommy Lasorda, 93. Because there were times when the pull was just too strong. The cause of his death is still unknown at this time. Garvey attended the memorial service for Alan Wiggins, his former teammate on the San Diego Padres, who died of an AIDS-related illness last year, after a seven-year career in the majors. They met at punk clubsthe blond man in custom-made suits, the striking woman in black cocktail dresses and leather boots. . GettyTommy Lasorda of the Los Angeles Dodgers throws out the ceremonial first pitch before the game against the New York Yankees at Dodger Stadium on July 30, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. Out reprints an infamous Lasorda Sr. quote from the time: My son wasnt gay. He was young, and because his father was his father, I did not connect the cause of death with AIDS. I also came across the Lasorda story again while reading all about Bean, since most stories referenced Burke, and Lasorda's son, and I began to question Lasorda Senior's explanation. He didn't pretend. "He was a teammate, we always got along well, he gave me one hundred percent effort, played right next to me. The words are like fingers jabbed into my chest. "There was an article one time. Even though I knew in my heart what was going on, I also wanted to try, just like I do now, and look at the whole person., Pallone said that although Lasordas public comments about his son were horrible, he attributed Lasordas attitude to, among other things, a macho culture, a generational gap, a Catholic background and him being Italian, like my father was Italian. He added, Its a hard thing to accept a sons sexual orientation when it isnt what youre used to.. When he was being photographed, Tommy was always trying to become different people. PENELOPE: O.K., but you understand, when somebody looks at a picture of you, they're going to say, this guy's awfully feminine. '"I guarantee you one fuckin' thing," he says. I was in Los Angeles in the mid-1990s, I can't remember the exact date, but I was having a conversation with some close friends at a party after I had just come out, and they told me what they heard about Tommy, Jr., and that his father said it wasn't true. There was a plague, and it was gutting the arts world in my city, and it needed to be cured, and quickly. A routine night is spent in the clubs, the bright ones and dark ones alike. Dave Pallone was an umpire from 1979 to 1988 and says he was fired for being gay. I liked Lasorda a lot, for most of my life, until some years ago, I heard the back-story about him and his son, and my attitude progressively changed. "You don't realize the enjoyment I got with those nuns in that convent. More locker-room enlightenment about gays in sports? I say that I thought a step forward had been taken by Magic Johnson's disclosure of his own HIV infection, that that's why some people in Los Angeles expected him to "Hey," he says. We may earn a commission from links on this page. When a person experiences cardiac arrest, it typically results in death if cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, isnt immediately performed followed by a defibrillator, which is used to shock the heart and restore a normal heart rhythm within a few minutes.. Assuming he was a woman, I asked a writer, "Who's that? Tommy had that good self-esteemwhere you figure that [his] parents did something right.". Email or phone: "If his father has to accept his son's death right now in that way, let him do it," she says. Lasorda was entitled to his personal life, and his opinions and the privacy of his feelings, yet at a time when it would have helped so many of us to understand more about the real Tommy, Jr., that never happened, and I'm really sad about that. though. Two decades later? A heart attack is quite serious, sometimes fatal. Tommy Lasorda received many tributes after the news of his death spread on Friday. (Campanis was fired in 1987 for racist comments he made about Black people in a television interview.) We are strolling through the night in Dodgertown, toward the fantasy-camp barbecue. I like to give something back.". It'd be Eugene's mother, saying she just got a bracelet. While the news of his death was hardly shockinghe'd been suffering from cardiopulmonary issues that kept him hospitalized. It may have been because he learned that he had contracted the human immunodeficiency virus. In 1976, he was anointed the second manager in the Los Angeles Dodgers' nineteen-year history. A heart attack (or myocardial infarction) refers to death of heart muscle tissue due to the loss of blood supply. The closet was as big as my living room. John Casey is editor at large for The Advocate. His friend would drive Tommy to the Italian restaurant where he'd meet his father for Sunday dinners. "I found him totally fascinating. According to a Dodgers biography on Tommy Lasorda, Lasorda and his wife,. So, when Burke became . "He was a good, sensitive kid," says Dusty Baker, now a coach with the San Francisco Giants. West Hollywood shakes its head and drives on by. He is survived by his wife of 70 years, Jo Lasorda, a daughter Laura Lasorda and a granddaughter, Emily. To match his blue waistcoat. One is from the blue period. Lasorda died on Friday at the age of 93, so I began to think about my complicated relationship with him, and his vehement denial of his gay son. In the case of the son, friends say the West Hollywood years were born of a Catch-22 kind of loneliness: The more bizarre the lengths to which he went to hone the illusion, the less accessible he became. One night, he enteredno, he made an entrancein a cape, with a pre-power ponytail and a cigarette holder: Garbo with a touch of Bowie and the sidelong glance of Veronica Lake. Beautiful designer clothes he looked great in.". He died of pneumonia.". TOMMY : I like all people. "He's dead." At the Duck Club, down behind the Whiskey, in 1985, Tommy sat in a corner drinking Blue Hawaiians. He came out publicly soon after and wrote a book titled Behind the Mask: My Double Life in Baseball. He said attitudes in the sport slowly began changing as more people come out publicly. Peter Richmond of GQ spoke with Lasorda Sr. in 1992. In the early eighties, they spent a lot of time together. Over the course of his marriages, the radio talent had five children - Chance, Cannon, Larry King Jr., Andy, and Chaia. He's dead. In red. No cause of death was announced. He still showed up at Dodger Stadium, too, with his companion, a woman named Cathy Smith, whom Tom senior said was Tommy's fiance. He was also the guy . What's the sense of bringing my problems to my team? In 20 years as manager of the baseball club, Lasorda won two World Series championships, four National League pennants and eight division titles, and was famous for saying he bled Dodger blue out of loyalty to the organization. Chambers has touched the lives of countless LGBT athletes as a basketball leader, medal-winner and friend. Lasorda, 93, suffered a sudden cardiopulmonary arrest at home at 10:09 p.m. local. Laura Lasorda has a brother named Tommy Lasorda Jr, also known as "Spunky." Unfortunately, her brother died on June 3, 1991, as a result of AIDS-related complications. Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Find more of his work at his website. Tommy had two done. On death certificates issued by the state of California, there are three lines to list the deceased's cause of death, and after each is a space labeled TIME INTERVAL BETWEEN ONSET AND DEATH. Absolute Legend., READ NEXT: Miami Heat Star Fears Game in Washington: Im Not Leaving My Room. Unlike practitioners of Crystal Cathedral pulpitry, Lasorda the tent-preacher believes in what he says, which, of course, makes all the difference in the world. In the hallway between the lounge and the locker room hang photographs of Brooklyn Dodgers games. Jo Lasorda was 91 years . From 1965 to 1972, Lasorda's teamsin Pocatello, Ogden, Spokane, then Albuquerquefinished second, first, first, first, second, first, third and first. Tommy Jr's death certificate listed his cause of death as "PROBABLE ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY . I ask Eugene if Tommy would have wanted this story written. He was a good man. Tommy Lasorda managed the Dodgers for 20 years, from 1976 to 1996, leading the team to two. Tommy had all of his teeth capped. Baker spent last Christmas Eve distributing turkey dinners with the Shanti Foundation, an AIDS-education group in California. Buthere was a chance wasted. The nature of the pain will forever be in debate. This is something he wanted. That's America. As parents they're both sowell, very straitlaced and conservative. He was the second of five sons born to Sabatino and Carmella Lasorda. Their first son died at the age of thirty-three, though the cause of death is in dispute. You'd think it'd be hard on a macho Italian man. TOMMY: I feel like I should, but I don't. The doctor put out a report of how he died. For forty-five minutes they tried to light the shot so that the underwear was concealed, to no avail. "Junior was the better hitter," recalls Steve Garvey. Anyone can read what you share. And of course, back in the '70s and early '80s, I wouldn't admit to anything like that. He wanted to please his dad. On June 3, 1991, with his parents and his sisters at his bedside, in the apartment on the cool, flower-strewn street, Tommy Lasorda died. By the age of twenty-two, Tom Lasorda was a successful minor league pitcher by trade, a left-hander with a curveball and not a lot more. His Tommy portfolio is spread across the table. he says. community, and it wont be so tough for fathers and mothers who are part of the game of baseball to accept their sons and daughters.. Some of the guys would say stuffyou know how guys arebut most were pretty cool. Did I have a right to go against a father's wishes? The Dodgers released a statement Friday. Spheeris, a director who made such films as Waynes World and Suburbia, got to know Tommy Jr. in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Tom Lasorda played for teams at nearly every level of professional ball: in Concord, N.H.; Schenectady, N.Y.; Greenville, S.C.; Montreal; Brooklyn (twice, briefly); Kansas City, Missouri; Denver; and Los Angeles. On Twitter, all major sports outlets and Dodgers fans shared statements on Lasordas death. ", No one who knew Tommy in the seventies and the early eighties recalls him having a steady romantic relationship. The tan is all. I ask him if he watched the ceremony on television when the Lakers retired Johnson's number. Tommy moved out of his West Hollywood place into a new condo in Santa Monica, on a quiet, neat street a few blocks from the beachan avenue of trimmed lawns and stunning gardens displayed beneath the emerald canopies of old and stalwart trees. He could never be what his father wasTommy Lasorda's own inner orientation made that impossiblebut he could fantasize, couldn't he? Especially since the more I reported, the more obvious it became that this was a love story about a father and a son? At the time of his death, Lasorda was the oldest living member of the Hall of Fame after being inducted in 1997 in his first year of eligibility. His son, Thomas Jr., died in 1991. It's just intentionally ME. But baseballs culture has progressed since Lasordas days, said Dave Pallone, a former M.L.B. I always felt that it should be more public that Sr. had a son that was gay and gorgeous and everything that Tommy was, she said in a phone interview on Saturday. "He talked lovingly about his father and their relationshipthey had a very good relationship," Stevens says now. "He went through the homosexual thing and came out of it," Magno continues. . But if a passerby's curiosity had been piqued and he'd climbed to the roof of a neighboring building to divine the source of the show, he would have been rewarded by a most unusual sight: a man of striking looks, with long blond hair, startlingly and wincingly thin, hitting the ball with a practiced swinga flat, smooth, even stroke developed during a youth spent in minor-league towns from Pocatello to Albuquerque. But what difference does it make? Coach Tommy Lasorda and wife Jo Lasorda attend Variety Club Tribute to President Ronald Reagan & Nancy Reagan on December 1, 1985 at NBC TV Studios. "Not too much surprises me in life anymore," Garvey says. No one interviewed for this story thought that Tommy wasn't gay; reactions to his father's denial range from outrage and incredulity to laughter and a shake of the head. The Dodgers confirmed Jo Lasorda passed away Monday night at the home in Fullerton she and Tommy shared for most of their 70-year marriage. No way. We had our differences on the field, but he was also fair. arned about the death of Martse Malawi through a Social Media post. Legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda dies at age 93 of a heart attack. But they left behind a legacy of lovable memories, and those who knew him will miss him greatly..It is with a deep sense of loss and a heavy heart that friends, family members, colleagues announced . Still, Tommy would have several of his favorites printed for his parents. Eugene captured them all. And it's better having comments, be it GOOD, BAD or WHATEVER. People need to know these things. I had crossed the line. She cried. The way you get rid of a fear is by attacking itCan you imagine if the Dodgers, who are somewhat conservative, could stand up and say, 'We understand this is a problem that needs to be addressedWe broke down the barriers from the beginning with Jackie Robinson. In the 2010 documentary Out: The Glenn Burke Story, his former Athletics teammate Claudell Washington said Manager Billy Martin introduced Burke to his new team with a homophobic slur. The director Penelope Spheeris met Tommy Lasorda Jr. at a punk rock club in the 1980s. He was the second of five sons born, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, a crowded little city-town a half-hour north of Philadelphia, to Sabatino Lasorda, a truckdriver who'd emigrated from Italy, and Carmella Lasorda. He walks down the hallway, clicking them off, talking out loud but to himself. At the time of Garvey's ascension to prominence, the Dodgers were managed by long-time veteran Walter Alston, and in 1976, he was replaced by the colorful and showy Tommy Lasorda. When he did, he was as elegant and debonair as ever: wide-brimmed hats, tailored suits. Friends hope to honor the men by discussing their relationship. However, at the time of his death, her father, Tommy Lasorda, was estimated to have a net worth of around $15 million. "There's no question. Tommy, Stevens recalls, often did not do his homework. Tommy Lasorda, the irrepressible baseball lifer who managed the Los Angeles Dodgers to four National League pennants and two World Series championships in a Hall of Fame career that spanned. He turned me on to Linda Clifford. In his last years, friends say, everything quieted down, markedly so. Tommy Lasorda, arguably one of the greatest managers in MLB history, died on January 7, 2021, as first reported by the Los Angeles Dodgers. GettyFormer Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda looks on from the dugout as he serves as an honorary coach during the game against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium on September 22, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. I blindly thought the young Lasorda just got tragically sick, but rumors abounded after he died about the real cause of his death, and about his sexuality. That's not the truth.". The red looked better. Why don't you work?'" Sheer bravado was the tool; tent-preaching thick with obscenities the style. In 1985, they didn't make it because Lasorda elected to have Tom Niedenfuer pitch to St. Louis's Jack Clark in the sixth game of the playoffs, against the odds, and Jack Clark hit a three-run home run. Spheeris said Tommy Jr. and his father loved each other. Tommy Lasorda, who managed the Dodgers for 21 seasons and won two World Series titles, died after he sustained a sudden cardiopulmonary arrest Jan. 7 at his home in Southern California. He couldn't do anything. I was wrong. I read that in a paper. "And to accept the fact he's not with them and what the real reason is. Gambling problem? The Dodgers manager showed love for Tommy Jr., but publicly denied that he was gay and that he died of AIDS complications. He loved black female artists. Friday, Jan. 8, 2021: The Los Angeles Dodgers issued a statement via Twitter today announcing the death of Tommy Lasorda, the Hall of Fame manager of the team from 1976 to 1996. They lived in the same modest home in Fullerton, Calif., for most of that time and had two children: a daughter, Laura, and a son, Tom Jr. His son died in 1991. We laugh and we cry and we mourn today, the passing of the man who represented the Dodgers more than anyone in Dodger history, said Los Angeles Times journalist Bill Plaschke. Tommy often had beautiful women around him, Pinkowski recallsvaguely European, vaguely models. You'd figure it'd be [the father saying] 'Please don't let people know you're my son,' but it was the opposite. He was a quiet tenant, a thoroughly pleasant man. "I became interested inthe blatant contrast in lifestyles. No one has questioned his competence. That's every individual's right.". ", "I'm in a position where I can help people, so I help people," Tom Lasorda says.