Tommy Lasorda and 10,000 Baseballs

“Hi, this is Tommy Lasorda. If you are not a Dodger fan, chances are you won’t get in to Heaven.” – Outgoing message on Tommy’s cell phone.

 For several years, I worked for an Australian-based company, selling point-of-sale systems and software to the stadium and arena market throughout the United States and Canada. One of the great perks in that job was that, as a sports fan, I had the chance to visit stadiums and arenas across North America. One week I would be at Staples Center in Los Angeles for the NBA Finals, and the next I would be watching a Cubs game at the friendly confines of Wrigley Field in Chicago. 

I travelled all over the continent, and met some astounding, and memorable, people, some of whom you may have heard of, and others not so much. Also a routine in this job was attending trade shows, conferences, and meetings where potential customers might congregate. One such meeting that I attended every year for about 7 years was the annual Winter Baseball Meetings, held every December, in various locations around the country. I have been to these meetings in Dallas, Nashville, Anaheim, Boston, Orlando, and a one or two other cities, but one experience stands out above the rest.

First, let me give you a little background to set the story.

I grew up in Fullerton, California, and attended all grades from kindergarten through high school within just a few miles of my house. I had the chance to get close to many people over the years, moving once in my childhood, just 3 miles, when I was 12. I had the same circle of friends most of life, rarely losing touch with those with whom I was the closest.

Several famous people, from musicians to athletes to politicians have come from Fullerton. Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Gary Carter, Walter Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Tommy Lasorda are just a few of the household names who either grew up in Fullerton, or who spent a significant amount of time there. I know I have missed many, but I want to tell you about several experiences I have had with one of these well known “celebrities”.

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I first met Tommy Lasorda at the 2000 Baseball Winter Meetings in Dallas, Texas. I was there on my own, representing my company, and after hours, everyone, it seemed, in professional baseball, gathered in one atrium area at the Westin Hotel. There were several cafes, and other places to eat, a stream running through the large atrium, and a bar/lounge area that became the hangout for everyone after hours.

I developed several relationships with minor league baseball general managers and owners during that week, and every night would meet with a handful of them and talk, drink an assortment of beverages, hammer out business deals, and just laugh. I loved these moments, and they proved to be much more fruitful from a business perspective than the hours on my feet at the baseball trade show. When you are sitting at a table with prospective clients, with time to really get to know them, and build a relationship, it is amazing how easy it is to begin a business partnership, and more importantly, a friendship.

This story has nothing to do with (well, very little, anyway) the client relationships that I developed that week. In fact, it has to do with a relationship that took root at about 1:45 AM, just before “last call”, and has continued to this day. 

In this lounge area, there was a piano bar. The pianist was wonderful. Shouts from across the open air lounge for tunes from all genres would be answered with the best rendition any of us had heard of that song. 

This went on all evening. 

I noticed at a table next to me, a few friends from a minor league baseball team, so I went over to say hi to them. As I sat down with them, I looked across the table and noticed that former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda was sitting at their table.

My friend quickly introduced me to Tommy, and said “This is Ed Hart. He is one of our business partners, and he is from the same home town as you are.”

I noticed a chair next to Tommy that was vacant, and as I was noticing it, he was motioning to me to come over “sit next to [him]”.

“Nice to meet you, Eddie”, Tommy said.

I don’t know what it is, but throughout my entire life, three groups of people have always called me Eddie, and I have always liked it; teachers in elementary school, a few girls in high school, and professional athletes and/or coaches. 

It has always felt like a term of endearment when they call me that, like they really know me. It sticks with me when someone calls me “Eddie”.

From that moment, I have always been “Eddie Hart” to Tommy Lasorda.

Tommy and I chatted about Fullerton, about the Dodgers (my favorite sports team, as a child, and now), about mutual friends, about songs that we could get the pianist to play, and just about life in general. Tommy and my Dad are the same age, both born in 1927. My Dad has a lot of stories about baseball players in Tommy’s generation, so we connected that night over stories of some of Tommy’s old friends from baseball that I had heard about growing up.

It was probably 11:00 at night when I met Tommy, and at 1:30AM, the pianist announced that he would be knocking off at 2 AM, when the bar would stop selling alcohol, and when they hoped people would clear out and go to bed.

Tommy was not having any of that. “Eddie”, he shouted above the noise, “here is 50 bucks. Go give it to that guy and tell him to play for another hour.”

Before I could get up to go pass along his request (and money), Tommy, stood up and joined me, put his arm around me, and walked over to the piano with me.

The next thing I knew, “Piano Man”, as we were all calling him at that point (really original, I know), was serenading our table, as one by one, the other tables cleared out.

So, what is the point of my story? 

Well, we need to move forward to 2005, five years later, and this is where the story really begins.

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At the end of 2004, I made a decision to leave the Australian company when I was approached by one of my clients about a possible position as the General Manager of a minor league baseball team in my hometown, the Fullerton Flyers. I will touch on this experience in another post, but the experience with Tommy Lasorda comes full circle in 2005.

A sponsor of ours with the baseball team was hosting a dinner as part of their grand reopening. I attended this dinner with several members of my front office staff, and with our manager, former Major League all-star Garry Templeton. 

Garry played for the St Louis Cardinals, and then the San Diego Padres, and knew Tommy very well from playing against the Dodgers for 16 seasons.

Tommy was at this grand reopening, as he was a regular at this restaurant, and knew the owner really well. 

I sat at the same table as Garry and Tommy, and a few others, including Tommy’s wife, Jo. Less than 5 minutes into the conversation (keep in mind, this was 5 years after Tommy and I spent about 2 hours together late one night in Dallas), Tommy said, “Well, Eddie, I have not seen you since we met in Dallas. What was that, about 4 or 5 years ago?”

I was floored.

Did he really remember me? Sure, that night in Dallas, he and I were “buddies” for a couple of hours, but we had not seen, nor spoken with, one another since that night.

Yes, he did, indeed, remember me, and the experience with the Piano Man.

I don’t remember anything else from the conversation that night over a plate of ribs, but I do remember the feeling of “Wow, I can’t believe Tommy Lasorda remembered my name!”

As I mentioned earlier, I grew up a huge Dodger fan, and Tommy became their manager when I was 13 years old. Now, one of my childhood heroes was remembering me, 5 years later.

By the end of the evening, I truly felt like I was one of Tommy’s friends. I was still “Eddie Hart” to him, and we parted with him saying, “Eddie, if you ever need anything, you just give me a call on my cell phone. I would love to come out to a game and sign autographs, talk to your players, or whatever you need.” 

He then gave me his business card, wrote his cell phone number on the back, and we went our separate ways.

I called him a few days later, mostly, I think, to test to see if it really was his cell phone, and that is when I first heard his outgoing message about not getting into Heaven if you are not a Dodger fan.

I hope he is right, because if he is, I'm good.

He called me back within hours, and told me how much he enjoyed seeing me again.

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About a year later, in February 2006, I was lucky enough to get former Dodger pitcher Charlie Hough to be our pitching coach. Charlie pitched for 25 years in the “Bigs”, and is one of the nicest people I have ever met. There really should be a book written about Charlie as person, let alone his 25 years in Major League Baseball.

As it turned out, the Dodgers (most notably, Tommy) had been trying to get Charlie to go to work for them as a pitching coach for their minor league team in Ogden, Utah. Charlie had no desire to leave his home in Brea (next door to Fullerton), since he had been “away from home for 25 years”, as he once told me.

One Friday, shortly after hiring Charlie to be our pitching coach, and putting out a press release, which attracted a lot of attention to our team (the target of any press release, especially in Independent minor league baseball), I came back to my office from lunch, and noticed the voice mail light on my phone flashing.

I punched in the code, and heard the following message:

“Hi Eddie, this is Tommy Lasorda. I understand you hired Charlie Hough to be your pitching coach in Fullerton. Congratulations. He is a class act. I would like to talk with you about that, so give me a call when you have a chance. Thanks, Eddie. I look forward to hearing from you.”

Did I hear that right? Tommy Lasorda was leaving ME a voice mail? Seriously?

I listened again, this time on speaker, and called out for Nick, my Assistant GM to come into my office. “Listen to this message, Nick,” I said in disbelief.

We couldn’t believe it. Why would Tommy want to talk to me about our hiring of Charlie Hough?

After calling my Dad, a few friends, and our Manager, Garry, to tell them about the message, I eventually called Tommy back.

“Hey Tommy, Eddie Hart. I got your message.”

“Hey Eddie, I will get right to the point. You just signed Charlie to be your coach, and we would like to see if you would be willing to trade him to the Dodgers.”

Okay, first of all, coaches are not traded. Second, independent teams do not make trades with Major League Baseball teams, or their affiliates.

What is he talking about, I wondered?

“What do you mean by trade him, Tommy?”

“Well, Eddie, we have been after him for a couple of years to coach for us, and we never thought he would come out of retirement to coach again. Now that we know he is interested in coaching again, we would like to have him.”

My heart sank, as I imagined the conversation I would be having next with Charlie.

We just announced him as our pitching coach, we got a lot of publicity, media coverage, sold some season tickets as a result, and I had been getting to know Charlie, and really liked him, and his wife, Sharon.

When I first met Charlie, I was welcomed into his home, and we sat in the living room, drinking lemonade and eating sandwiches that Sharon had made for us. I felt like a college football coach going into the living room of the prized high school senior, trying to convince the kid that “State U” was the place for him!

I talked with Charlie about how he could still live at home, teach young pitchers how to prepare for a game, tell them stories of his 25 years in the Bigs, and every other angle I could imagine to convince him that coaching the Flyers made sense.

He told me months later, to quote the line from “Jerry Maguire”, that I “had him at hello.”

He told Sharon that he wanted to coach for us before I stepped foot in his house.

So, my relationship with Charlie, and the major upside of having him as our pitching coach seemed to be crashing down in the blink of an eye, or the flashing light of a voice mail.

“Now I know you would be really disappointed to lose Charlie”, Tommy said, as if he were reading my mind in that moment. “We are prepared to make a trade that might be worthwhile to you.”

“Well”, I started, “unless we are getting YOU in return, Tommy, I can’t imagine what you can offer that would take the sting out of losing Charlie.”

Tommy proceeded to talk to the business side of me, offering to donate 10,000 baseballs to our team in exchange for Charlie.

10,000 baseballs! 

I started doing the math. A dozen balls costs about $36, and we go through 6 or 7 dozen per game, so that is about 80 balls per game. That would be more than enough balls to cover all of our home games, batting practice, and then some. Also, Tommy offered to autograph a few hundred so we could sell them, or donate them.

That would save me about $30,000, which is huge, not to mention the money we could make off of selling the Tommy Lasorda autographed balls.

10,000 baseballs, or Charlie Hough.

“Well, Tommy”, I said with obvious hesitation in my voice, “Have you spoken with Charlie about this yet?”

“Not yet, but we are having dinner together on Sunday night.”

That’s it, our fate is sealed. We will be losing Charlie.

I could not get excited about 10,000 baseballs, as I could only see the loss of Charlie as our coach.

“Well, talk to him, and if he is interested, then let’s talk on Monday and make it official.”

I was heartbroken, and Tommy knew it. 

“I will make this up to you, Eddie. We are friends, and I don’t want you to have a bad taste in your mouth over this.”

I don’t remember what I said, but it was probably something along the lines of, “Well, let’s talk again on Monday.” I am sure there were a few choice words uttered once I hung up, but I won’t go there.

After talking with Garry about the possibility of losing Charlie, and of the offer of 10,000 baseballs (Garry and I actually had a pretty good laugh at the “trade” offer – “that’s a lot of balls”, Garry said), I then decided to call Charlie to get his take on the possibility of going to coach for the Dodgers minor league team in Utah.

“I don’t want to do it”, Charlie said, probably just in basic words, but it sounded like a heavenly choir of angels in my ears. “I have told Tommy before that I do not have any interest in coaching outside of southern California, unless it is for a big league team.”

I let the weekend pass; knowing that Charlie and Tommy (and their wives) would be having dinner on Sunday night. I was still nervous that Charlie would change his mind, but when he got home from dinner that night, he called to assure me that he was not leaving the Flyers. He also told me Tommy would be calling me the next day.

Monday morning, I received the call from Tommy.

“Well, Eddie, I guess he is all yours. He doesn’t want to leave home.”

Tommy sounded a little bit disappointed, but wanted to make sure that I knew there were no hard feelings.

“The offer still stands…if you ever want me to come out to a game, or anything, just call”, Tommy said.

*         *         *         *        *

A little over a year later, about half way through our second season, our team was really struggling, and we were about to finish in last place for the first half of the season. Luckily, the season was divided into two halves, so we would get another shot to make it to the post-season for our first time. Our first season (2005), we were not good, and finished just one game ahead of the last place team, a Japanese travel team that played all 90 games on the road.

I was sick of losing, and sick of playing in front of an empty stadium.

Along with some mid-season roster changes, and an episode in the clubhouse where I blew up in front of the players, and said some things that I should not have said, but also some things that I should, I decided that we needed some sort of pep talk, motivational speech, or some outside event to turn things around.

We had a very good team, and with the 4 or 5 roster moves we made, we felt like we could turn the corner and be a contender for the second half. In fact, our first baseman, Peanut Williams (seriously), went on to win the league MVP, and earn honors in Baseball America as one of the top Independent baseball players in the country. Our ace pitcher, Chris Jakubauskas (you just can’t make these names up!), won league pitcher-of-the-year honors, and two years later made his Major League debut with the Seattle Mariners.

Our team was good.

Still, we needed something else.

I called Tommy.

“Hey Tommy”, I began. Before I could continue, he replied, “Hey Eddie, how are things going? I see your team is struggling a little bit. What can I do?”

After joking about sending a few Dodgers down to us to help us turn things around, I asked if he would be willing to come out and spend a few moments before a game talking to our players. If you know anything about Tommy, he is passionate, loves the game of baseball, and has a colorful way of getting his point across. 

He was just what our team needed.

A few nights later (giving us time to promote Tommy Lasorda Night so that we could fill the stadium – it worked), Tommy came out about an hour before the game, our first game of the second half, and spent about 30 minutes talking with our team in the dugout.

He talked with the players about believing in themselves, in each other, and in their talents. As he talked with the guys, he shared stories of times when the Dodgers were down in 1988, and struggling, and how they came together as a team and developed an attitude of confidence and winning, and eventually came to a knowledge that they were going to win. 

That Dodger team went on to win the World Series, which is most remembered by Kirk Gibson’s dramatic two out, pinch hit home run in the bottom of the 9th inning in game 1.

To have Tommy tell about that team lifted and inspired our guys to the point that we went out and won 11 of our first 13 games to start the second half, and eventually won the 2nd half championship.

To a man, our guys would tell you today that the 30 minutes with Tommy changed their entire outlook on the season, on their potential, and also moved them into a state of believing in themselves, and realizing that they had the talent to win.

So what do all of these stories about Tommy have to do with anything? Well, let me summarize the key elements that stand out to me the most about my experiences with him.

Having been in professional baseball for over 60 years, and winning two World Series as the manager of the Dodgers (1981, 1988), Tommy understands the value of relationships, caring for people, remembering people, and believing in your talents and potential when times are tough. He knows what it takes to win, but more than anything else, he is a living, breathing, example of passion. No one could have more passion for his chosen field of work than Tommy has for baseball.

He gets how important it is to maintain relationships, to nourish them, and to stay positive in the midst of dark, and tough times.

He knows how to lift others, and how to get them to lift one another.

He is also very perceptive. When we both thought Charlie Hough was about to leave the Flyers to go coach for the Dodgers, Tommy knew that it would be a big blow to me, and to my team. He immediately tried to mitigate the pain and damages by offering something he knew would be of business value to me. 

Sure, we received great publicity on a national level, even making ESPN’s SportsCenter, with the news that the Dodgers had offered to trade 10,000 baseballs for Charlie, but Tommy also understood the value of maintaining a positive relationship with me even when he didn’t get his way, and Charlie chose to stay put.

Tommy values relationships. He values people. Many people in professional sports tend to value their fellow athletes and associates more than the rest, but not Tommy. He knows that everyone has value, and that every person makes a difference. 

I have learned many things from my experiences with Tommy since 2000, and even before, as I watched him lead the Dodgers to the World Series 4 times, but most of all, I learned that it is vital to pay attention to the details in relationships, and to really listen to what the other person is NOT saying in the communications that I have with people.

“They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Ronald Reagan

So What?

What relationships in your life could improve if you were to pay closer attention to the way the other person is feeling?

How well do you remember significant, and even seemingly less significant, relationships in your life?

How obvious is your passion to others around you? Are you passionate about what you do for a living, and if not, what can you do to become more passionate?

When you break news to others that is obviously disappointing, what do you do to soften the blow, or to keep them from becoming negative or developing a feeling of animosity towards you?

What are you going to do to improve in these areas?