Tommy Lasorda Off the Cuff: An Audio/Video Collage

Tommy Lasorda, the former Dodgers manager and a columnist for 108 Magazine, is noted for being a baseball ambassador, a true asset to the game, even after his "official" retirement. But sometimes his passion for baseball (or, perhaps more accurately, for winning) overcame his internal censor, and after a ballgame he would let loose with a stream of profanities during his mini press conference with reporters.

I've been to a few of these informal exchanges: they take place almost immediately after the end of each game, in the manager's office. Relatively small enclaves of reporters, equipped with pens and notepads and often tape recorders, surround the manager, who's sitting at his desk. Usually he's still in his uniform, and after a long day of work, like the rest of us, he just wants to get the hell home. But first he's got to give the media guys something.

It usually starts with the the TV folks. They've been perched in the office since the eighth inning, taking up the first "row," so they can get their short clip in time to be slotted into the 11 p.m. or midnight local newscast. After a question or two, they're gone. Those are usually softball questions with easy answers, and that's all they need.

Then the radio guys move in. They want something better, smarter. Something that can add real substance to a 2-minute audio report. And the manager knows the routine, and tries to provide it. They've also got an ASAP deadline, and get out of there as soon as possible.

Which leaves the print reporters. The majority are local beat reporters, a few cover the opposing team, there's a "neutral" but local AP scribe, and maybe a feature writer or two. And that's when things get a little looser. The manager knows that the video and radio guys are good PR and he tries to help them by giving them something that's not too tough to edit. But newspapers generally don't print profanities, so if he's inclined toward that type of language, especially when upset, angry, or tired, he feels free to use it. He knows most of the reporters surrounding him, talks with them frequently, and is around them for hours a day, every day. The level of familiarity must provide a certain comfort.

I'm generalizing, of course; some managers are more buttoned down than others. Some say as little is as necessary to satisfy the press. Some may use profanity on occasion -- say, one f-bomb per sentence, one polysyllabic sex-act descriptor per paragraph. Others may be the meanest SOBs in the world, but don't curse, either for religious reasons or because corporal punishment was the penalty for cursing when they were children.

Lasorda was one of the best at integrating profanity into all kinds of responses to reporters' questions, which ranged from the simple (and therefore ridiculous), to the smart (and therefore ridiculous), to the complex (and therefore ridiculous).

Some of those old reporters' audiotapes have survived. This collage includes one of my favorite audio clips, about Kurt Bevacqua, whose name provides some great hard consonants to complement full-blown fescennine belittlement. Lasorda also has some interesting things to say about Steve Garvey. The video is well done, with appropriately synchronized still shots underscoring Lasorda's sentiments.

It's also NSFW, unless you're wearing headphones. Lots of cussing.