Tommy Lasorda represents a bygone era in baseball, and with Memorial Day approaching, now is a good time to celebrate America’s favorite pastime.
In 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared baseball America’s official national pastime, and a only a few years after that baseball legend Tommy Lasorda commenced a journey that would come to define him and cement his legacy in the sport. So much has changed in the baseball world since that 1942 declaration, and Lasorda has been there for all of it.
Lasorda was hospitalized last week with an undisclosed illness, and this Memorial Day weekend Americans will pay tribute to those who give and gave their lives to protect our freedom. Lasorda was one of the baseball players who served our country in the middle of his young baseball career, making this a perfect time to reflect on an early moment in baseball history when patriotism, military service, and baseball intersected.
Lasorda will celebrate his 90th birthday in September, and over the course of his nine decades, his involvement in baseball has spanned 72 years. Lasorda was getting ready to make his minor league debut when Roosevelt declared baseball as the national pastime, and in 1945 he joined the Philadelphia Phillies as an undrafted free agent only to leave baseball a few months later to enlist in the Army.
That 1942 presidential declaration was made because America needed an escape from the horrors of World War II. Even in 1942, baseball was ingrained in the fabric of the nation and it made sense to preserve the sport even when so many young men were going off to war. People needed hope, and they needed a place where they could escape. However, several baseball legends of the day were already gone from the sport, not because of retirement but because they had already enlisted. Lasorda himself left baseball to serve on active duty in the Army from October1945 to the spring of 1947.
Baseball has always been supportive of the United States military and its active service members and our veterans. Back in the 1940s, when FDR made that famous declaration about America’s passtime, it was a time when players went off to war themselves. Military service was not expected of them, but for so many of these men it was the right thing to do.
When America entered into World War II, many athletes and Hollywood celebrities felt compelled to enter the military. They were usually surrounded by the media when they went to boot camp, so many of the young men back home seeing their idols were inspired to join up and go off to war themselves. This wasn’t a time when celebrities worried about their reputations in joining the cause, and athletes didn’t stop to consider their ability to play following their return home from war.
Lasorda came back from the war in the spring of 1947 and returned to the diamond in 1948 with the Schenectady Blue Jays. He didn’t make his MLB debut until 1954 when he played his first game as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and he remained in MLB until 1956. After that he spent a few years in the minor league system before being released by the Dodgers in 1960. In a 12-year span of time Lasorda made his minor league debut, went to war, and started pitching for the Dodgers.
Years later, following a 20-year stint as the manager of the Dodgers, Lasorda came out of retirement to manage the 2000 U.S. Olympics Baseball team, guiding them to a gold medal win. There was a huge sense of pride attached to taking on that role, especially for someone like Lasorda who knows all about the honor of representing one’s country, whether it’s on the baseball field or the battle field.
Times have certainly changed. These days baseball players decline offers to play in the Olympics or World Baseball Classic for fear of injury, which could derail their MLB contracts. While such considerations are understandable, it does reflect how players’ focus has shifted.
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As we approach Memorial Day, and as we wish Lasorda a speedy recovery. It’s a great time to reflect upon that era in baseball when players represented more than their teams: They represented their countries.