Lasorda Talks His Way In Manager, Niekro, Wells, Fox Enter Hall Of Fame

He told the story of seeing an opposing manager in Catholic church on the morning of a game, and of watching him light a candle.

“I walked up the other side, crossed the altar and blew it out,” Tom Lasorda said.

He told the story of the time he asked teammate Pee Wee Reese to cite the least likely future star manager among 25 members of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers.

“He told me I was 24th, and I said, ‘I’m only 24th?’ ” Lasorda recalled. “He said, yeah, (Sandy) Amoros is 25th, because he can’t speak English.”

He laughed, he wept, he talked of the dreams of a 15-year-old boy and the sadness of a 69-year-old man.

Then, as if there was any doubt that baseball’s staid Hall of Fame had just added a leopard-skin couch, Lasorda pointed into the crowd and shouted, “I also want to recognize and thank one of the greatest actors in the history of Hollywood.”

Up stood Tony Danza.

It took Lasorda 48 years to get here but only 13 minutes to make himself at home Sunday during induction ceremonies for baseball’s Hall of Fame.

In front of nearly 15,000 at a grassy park in the shadow of the Adirondacks, Lasorda became the 14th manager inducted into baseball’s shrine.

Considering he prepared for his afternoon speech by hijacking an entire section of the dining room at the fable Otesaga Hotel and eating a four-hour breakfast with 100 or so of his closest friends … he did just fine.

Also inducted were knuckleball pitcher Phil Niekro, Negro League shortstop Willie Wells and second baseman Nellie Fox.

Niekro gave a touching tribute to his late father, Phil Sr., a coal miner and amateur star.

Niekro said his father’s daily game with other coal miners in heaven was being delayed by the ceremony, and ended his speech with, “Play ball, Dad.”

Stella Wells talked of her father’s once-distant Hall of Fame hopes and said, “I never dreamed I would have this opportunity.”

Joanne Fox, widow of long-time Chicago White Sox second baseman Nellie, said her husband’s hard play was a reminder that “heart and soul have made baseball the game we all love.”

That is certainly what made Lasorda so beloved and an easy pick for the Veteran’s Committee when it elected him in his first year of eligibility.

His eight division titles, four pennants and two world championships were noted Sunday, as were his 61 postseason games, ranking him third among all managers. Yet he was introduced not as a manager, but an ambassador.

“This game does not belong to the owners, it does not belong to the players!” he shouted during his speech. “You can have the greatest ball park in the world, and if nobody comes through the turnstiles, you’ve got nothing.

“We need you, the fans!”

Lasorda also showed both a tender and feisty side when thanking a man he called his “mentor,” former Dodgers general manager Al Campanis.

Even though Campanis has been unofficially exiled from major league baseball since making racist remarks on national television in 1987, Lasorda credited his entire major-league career to his former boss.

“Man, I wish he could be here today,” Lasorda said of Campanis, who was ill.

Lasorda paused, bowed his head and momentarily wept.

“I love him very much,” he said. “He taught me so much about baseball and life.”

In a news conference after the ceremonies, Lasorda reiterated his belief Campanis was treated unfairly when he was fired after saying blacks lacked the “necessities” to become managers. Before those comments, Campanis was best known for teaching Jackie Robinson to play second base and for becoming one of baseball’s first executives to sign players from Latin America.

Lasorda said he thought he would totally lose his composure if he mentioned his son Spunky, who died several years ago from AIDS-related complications. So he did not.

Seemingly everyone else was given credit, from wife Jo to daughter Laura and son-in-law Billy, to granddaughter Emily Tess, to former Dodgers trainer Bill Buhler. Yes, he even thanked Fred Claire, the Dodgers general manager, who was there despite their uneasy relationship.

Then he pointed to the crowd to introduce “two of the best basketball coaches ever!”

Fans murmured. Were Phil Jackson and Pat Riley in the audience?

Up stood Mike Fratello and Rollie Massimino.

By then even the uninitiated had figured out, if you are Lasorda’s friend, you are the greatest.

And so nobody was surprised when he shouted, “This is the greatest thing that ever happened to me in my lifetime.”

Then he closed his talk with the story of a dream.

“When I was a 15-year-old boy, I would dream of pitching for the Yankees, and my mother would come in and say, ‘Wake up, go to school,’ ” he said. “That’s the way I feel now. Like she should be coming in and saying, ‘Wake up, go to school.’ ” A dream. It was the theme of an unlikely career, and the message of an unlikely crowning moment.

His story about the church and the opposing manager and the candle? He said the manager was the Cincinnati Reds’ John MacNamara, and that his Dodgers beat the Reds that afternoon, 13-2.

A check of every game between those two teams when those men managed revealed no 13-2 game.

A dream. Fine. As you read this, he is bouncing off the walls of baseball’s most hallowed home, staining the carpet with Dodger blue.

A dream, huh? You tell him.