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• I Live for This!: Baseball's Last True Believer
Bill Plaschke

Houghton Mifflin, 2007 - 256 pages

average customer review:based on 9 reviews
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   highly recommended  highly recommended






RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "TOMMY BASEBALL"- FROM NORRISTOWN TO THE HALL OF FAME TO OLYMPIC GOLD!"

This is the biography of Hall Of Fame Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda. Unlike most biographies which are chronological; birth to youth to aged, this story starts with a "Foreword" in 1990, then to the present, and then the entire book consists of "flash-backs" from the present to the past, and then back to the present again. It's very much like some of today's annoying movies where the story continually flashes back and forth and you're never sure what dimension you're in. But once you get used to that, the story takes off like a speedster running out an inside the park home run!

Tommy who came from an Italian immigrant family in Norristown Pennsylvania never forgets where he came from. The story allows you to follow Tommy from having to steal his first baseball glove, to him sitting on the top of the world when he wins two world championships for the Dodgers. Combining an immeasurable desire to be a Major League ballplayer, with a "baseball wit" that would make a vaudeville comedian envious, and the willingness to throw more haymakers than the last five heavyweight champions combined, Tommy was not to be denied.

Lasorda throughout the book is giving speeches to anyone willing to listen, and even to people who don't. He gives speeches for large sums of money, and gives speeches for free to churches, firemen, the military, and other worthy causes. The honesty in this book is powerful! Tommy pledges undying allegiance and thanks to the people who helped him and always stood by him. People such as the O'Malley family, Al Campanis, his best friend and USC baseball legend Rod Dedeaux. He just as vehemently curses the ground that his enemies walked on, such as former Dodger manager Walt Alston. Tommy pulls absolutely no punches when it comes to someone whom he took in his heart and treated like a son, and then knifed him in the back, Bill Russell, former Dodger shortstop and short lived manager. I absolutely admire Tommy for his honesty and passion regarding Russell and the Dodgers, who turned their back on him after they were bought by Fox.


I was going to rate this a "4 star" until the book got near the home stretch. When the story rounds third heading for home, we come to the 2000 Olympic Baseball team with Tommy as the manager. The team was made up of nobodies, has beens, and never were's! Lasorda, waving the American Flag from the deepest reaches of his heart, not only made this band of unknowns believe, he led them to the Olympic Gold Medal, and along the way, beat the team that had never, ever, been beaten, the Cuban National Team! As tears streamed down Tommy's face, there was not one member of current Dodger management in attendance. But! Peter O'Malley the former Dodger owner had flown to Australia unannounced to support Tommy! And that's what Tommy was always all about! Loyalties, "I've got your back!! Baseball, America, and the Dodger's.

I'm happy to say that when the McCourt's bought the Dodgers in 2004, they called Tommy and said they couldn't imagine buying the Dodgers without Tommy as Frank McCourt's right hand man, his special assistant. Now everything is right with the world! The greatest country America, And America's pastime, has it's greatest goodwill ambassador back where he should be, with the Dodger's! A "FIVE-STAR-FINISH!"


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Best Biography Ever!

Before reading this book I was in no way a fan of the Dodgers or Lasorda. After reading it I can't say that I am a big Dodger fan but do have respect for the team and their history. However, I am a converted Lasorda fan. Hearing the stories and the tools he used to not only motivate possibly less skilled players win the world series (and the olympics) but also people in everyday life. He continues to impact people's lives everday with his personal approach to life. He is a role model not only for managers and coaches of sports teams but of managers of people. My hope is he lives to be a million years old so he can continue to to have a positive impact on millions of people.


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A challenging book

Tommy Lasorda is a company man and proud of it, regardless of what you might think when he propounds his creed of "the great Dodger in the sky" or bleeding "Dodger blue." The long-time icon has lived in a world that seems long-forgotten: he believes in loyalty, and woe betide anyone who doesn't return the sentiment.

In I LIVE FOR THIS!, LA Times sportswriter Bill Plaschke provides an unusual perspective from most sports biographies. While the character of his subject is never in question --- Lasorda is depicted almost as a national treasure, charitable to an almost absurd degree --- he is not flawless. Lasorda is like the family patriarch who has become outmoded in his role as the big cheese; he no longer wields the power, but acts as tribute should still be paid to him (not unlike King Lear). He is vain, selfish, an attention hog, loves being in the company of other celebrities and is convinced that his 50-plus years with the organization has earned him a large measure of respect and deference. He is insulted when he isn't consulted on front office plans, long after he stepped down as field manager and later general manager.

Lasorda's button-holing of young players who do not understand or care about his place in "Dodgerdom" is almost pathetic as he seeks to remain in the limelight, or at least on the radar. He believes, like the wife of Willy Loman, that attention must be paid. Needless to say, not everyone involved with the team over the years has agreed.

At the same time, his contributions within and outside the game is undeniable. A staunch family man, he is recognized wherever the game is played, from the Olympics to Little League.

Plaschke jumps back and forth between the Lasorda trying to make a name for himself (and coming up short) as a player and his attempts to maintain that baseball connection into the 21st century; this can be a bit jarring.

What makes I LIVE FOR THIS! interesting is not that Plaschke has written it; sportswriters have been making an extra buck publishing inside dope or ghosting autobiographies for a hundred years. Rather, it is that Lasorda himself, by virtue of his "co-authorship" --- whatever that entailed --- signed off on a book that is at times quite unflattering.

This is a challenging book; there's no simple way to categorize it. Whether you like Lasorda or not, whether you think he's an out-of-touch blowhard or a passionate man with a heart of gold, he is, in a sense, one of baseball's "greatest generation." Plaschke calls him the last "true believer" in the national pastime, which has lost ground over the past few decades for any number of reasons. If that turns out to be accurate, it's a sad omen for all us fans.

--- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan


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