THE PRICE OF FAME

It is a glorious summer evening, the kind that used to make him want to run out to his pitcher just so he could bask in it.

It is breezy, clear, an evening for winning, for Kirk Gibson home runs and Joe Ferguson collisions and an Orel Hershiser bases-loaded strikeout.

At least, that’s what Tom Lasorda is thinking before he sighs and steps out of his luxury car into a cavernous West Covina mall.

For this retiree who feels forgotten by those who retired him, it is just another evening for autographs.

“I’ve been here since early this afternoon,” announces postal worker C.C. Martinez, standing in a line that snakes around the mall’s balloon-filled kiosk and . . .

Hey you, watch out! There it is. The usual. A shoving match. Two guys trying to get too close to the most beloved Dodger of all.

Security guards quickly separate the men, fix the ropes. Lasorda looks over his reading glasses at the growing mob of nearly 1,000 and smiles.

Yes, sir. He is remembered somewhere, all right. They love him here, in a working-class community where loyalty still matters.

He will sign for them here, for more than two hours, baseballs and shirts and menus, and still there will be a couple of hundred people shut out, who will have to stay behind the ropes and accept a pre-autographed photo while he trudges back to his car.

Yes, sir. The Dodgers may be playing baseball three time zones away, their players and bosses may not have thought of 69-year-old Tommy, but they can’t shake him. They’ll never shake him, as long as there are people who have been touched.

“Look at this,” says Chester Tadakawa of El Monte. “Just look at this!”

He and wife Meryl had stood in line with the others, some as long as six hours, to show Lasorda a photo.

It shows the manager, sitting on the bench, surrounded by the Tadakawa family, Chester and Meryl and two daughters.

The photo is 16 years old. The image of Lasorda giving his time to four strangers has been in a frame on a prominent shelf in the Tadakawa household for all those 16 years.

One girl is 24 now, the other 20, and the picture is finally autographed.

“This is a special man,” Tadakawa says.

Lasorda smiles.

Yes sir, the major league Dodgers can take away his power, but not his family, which is their family, even if they haven’t realized it yet.

“Sometimes I don’t understand it myself,” Lasorda says, and although he is talking about his popularity, he could just as well have been talking about his problem.

Which is this:

One year after retiring, against his most private wishes, Lasorda has been steered deeper into that retirement than he ever imagined.

After a 20-year career as their manager, he is no closer to the Dodgers’ major league team than you are.

Not once, he says, has his input been asked about major league affairs.

Only once, say observers, has he watched a game with baseball boss Fred Claire.

Only once has he even been to the Dodger Stadium clubhouse. And that was when he threw out the first ball.

It’s as if nobody wants to know what he thinks about Mike Piazza’s swing, or Wilton Guerrero’s defense, or how to beat the Braves in Atlanta.

His job description? Team ambassador and minor league scout.

When Lasorda is not in shopping malls, fighting off crowds who think he is the greatest Dodger employee ever, he is running errands for an organization that may or may not agree.

To Albuquerque. To Vero Beach. To San Antonio.

To understand his feelings, one needs only to look at this weekend’s calendar.

Lasorda will be inducted into the Hall of Fame today, then the Dodgers will play an exhibition game here Monday.

His old team will then fly to Montreal to continue the Western Division title chase . . . while Lasorda flies to Savannah to check out the Class A Sand Gnats.

Certainly, evaluating youngsters is important work, especially in an organization that values them so much.

Claire, the team’s general manager, is being as honest as always when he says, “Tommy’s time is absolutely being devoted to the right place.”

Yet Lasorda is also being honest when he says, “I am happy, but I am not satisfied. I want to do more.”

Which could make for a pretty interesting group photo during today’s induction ceremonies, a portrait that could find its way to Rupert Murdoch’s desk.

On one side would be Claire, on the other side Lasorda, and in the middle would be Peter O’Malley.

When O’Malley sells the team this fall, Murdoch will become the man in the middle, and he’ll have to decide whether Lasorda will be given a more responsible role. If he is not given a job similar to Claire’s, he will probably leave the organization.

If that happens, Murdoch will have the unique distinction of making Bruce McNall look like Mother Teresa.

But then what does Murdoch do with Claire, a successful general manager and a decent man?

How about promoting Claire to club president--O’Malley’s old title--and then moving Lasorda into Claire’s job?

Lasorda could use his valuable major league skills again, and Claire would be around to make sure he didn’t acquire a dozen short, fat left-handers.

Lasorda laughs. Not about that, about everything.

He walks away from his career into the overwhelming embrace of fans who phone him 30 times a day with requests for speeches and appearances . . . yet he doesn’t quite feel appreciated.

“I miss the game,” Lasorda says softly. “I really miss it. I miss the competition, the camaraderie. I miss all the guys.”

He walks into a men’s room at Jacobs Field during the All-Star game in Cleveland and is given a rousing ovation. In the men’s room.

He walks into an arena at Greensboro, N.C., and is given a standing ovation by 23,000.

During a 12-day stretch in February, he makes 20 appearances, from Vero Beach to Tokyo, some of them for a $20,000 fee, all of them by invitation.

Yet when he is in Dodger Stadium he rarely strays from the press box or O’Malley’s box, and is clearly uncomfortable talking to--or about--his protege, Bill Russell.

It is difficult for both men, a new manager with a diverse and difficult team, his Hall of Famer predecessor with all the fans.

“I don’t want anyone to think I’m looking over his shoulder,” Lasorda says. “I am there if he needs me.”

Said Russell earlier this season: “Tommy is always welcome here.”

Lasorda and Russell will undoubtedly become confidants again one day, when both are confident and secure in their new shoes.

Lasorda and Claire will surely come to admire one another one day, even if from afar, if for no other reason than those special moments they created together nine summers ago.

But there are no more days when Lasorda will be the Dodger manager. And by accepting induction into the Hall of Fame, he stands no chance of managing again anywhere.

That would just not be proper, and he knows it. Still, it’s hard to accept, especially for a man who feels he was forced to give it all up because of a silly heart that he knows is the strongest part of that stumpy little body.

“You know, I really would like to manage again, I’d just love it, but I know I probably can’t,” he says. “I wanted my family to be able to see me get into the Hall of Fame, so this is what happens. I have to realize that.”

Maybe if the Dodgers haven’t quite accepted the new Tommy, neither has Lasorda. And maybe until such acceptance happens, nothing else can.

The summer evening is no longer so glorious. It’s dark as Lasorda leaves the mall for his car, which has been started by security guards and is waiting for him in a no-parking zone.

He climbs in, punches his no-hands phone, calls his wife, Jo, and her laugh fills the front seat as it has filled his life for decades.

He laughs with her, prepares to drive to the Fullerton home he has owned for decades, then notices the security guard had switched on his emergency flashers.

He cannot figure out how to turn them off. He turns to his visitor, who is equally puzzled.

They push buttons and flip levers. The windshield wipers swish, the horn sounds . . . and the lights continue to flash.

Lasorda rolls down the window, calls out, and another passing security guard stops to help.

The Hall of Fame manager is embarrassed. He hates to ask for help, but he has no choice.

“Right here,” says the guard, reaching inside and quickly flicking off the lights.

Lasorda thanks him and looks away, still embarrassed. Then he notices the man’s hand is still on the steering wheel.

“Mr. Lasorda,” says the guard, stammering, “would you mind, like, uh, shaking my hand?”

“Oh,” says Lasorda, smiling suddenly, relieved, as if that Big Dodger in the Sky had just dropped him back into a uniform, which is what he really wants, sometimes even enough to trade that bronze plaque for it. “Certainly, young man! Certainly!”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

HOW LASORDA RANKS

Where former Dodger manager Tom Lasorda ranks among the 14 managers in Hall of Fame:

Victories: 1,599 (9th)

Losses: 1,439 (8th)

Winning Pct.: .526 (9th)

Pennants: 4 (8th)

World Series Titles: 2 (7th)

* Career Record C10

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Fame-ous Managers

Managers in the Hall of Fame: Walter Alston

Leo Durocher

Ned Hanlon

Bucky Harris

Miller Huggins

Tom Lasorda

Al Lopez

Connie Mack

Joe McCarthy

John McGraw

Bill McKechnie

Wilbert Robinson

Casey Stengel

Earl Weaver

LASORDA’S RECORD

Tom Lasorda’s regular-season record. He won four of six championship series, and two World Series. *--*

Year, Team W L Pct Pos 1976, Los Angeles 2 2 .500 2 1977, Los Angeles 98 64 .605 1 1978, Los Angeles 95 67 .586 1 1979, Los Angeles 79 83 .488 3 1980, Los Angeles 92 71 .564 2 1981, LA-1st Half-x 36 21 .632 1 1981, LA-2nd Half 27 26 .509 4 1982, Los Angeles 88 74 .543 2 1983, Los Angeles 91 71 .562 1 1984, Los Angeles 79 83 .488 4 1985, Los Angeles 95 67 .586 1 1986, Los Angeles 73 89 .451 5 1987, Los Angeles 73 89 .451 4 1988, Los Angeles-x 94 67 .584 1 1989, Los Angeles 77 83 .481 4 1990, Los Angeles 86 76 .531 2 1991, Los Angeles 93 69 .574 2 1992, Los Angeles 63 99 .389 6 1993, Los Angeles 81 81 .500 4 1994, Los Angeles 58 56 .509 1 1995, Los Angeles 78 66 .542 1 1996, Los Angeles 41 35 .539 -- Totals 1599 1439 .526 .....

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