I Live for This!: Baseball's Last True Believer
by Bill Plaschke
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bill PlaschkeContributor: Tommy Lasorda
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-10-24
ISBN: 0618653872
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Book Reviews of I Live for This!: Baseball's Last True Believer
Book Review: Tommy Over The Ages
Summary: 5 Stars
Do you bleed Dodger blue? Tommy does. If that's your blood color, don't miss this breezy look at the many ages of Tommy from little kid through to the 2008 season when he managed the last game at Dodgertown in Vero Beach.
Tommy Lasorda is a unique combination of loyal supporter, brash striver, outrageous motivator, kid with a chip on his shoulder, big-hearted helper, insecure human, foul-mouthed jerk, and adoring pal. The size of his heart is what stands out from this biography.
I decided to pick up the book when my sister recounted a story about some shenanigans at one of the Dodger minor league clubs a few weeks ago. She told me that she would straighten it out. I asked her how. She said, "I'll tell Tommy the next time I see him."
Naturally, I asked her when she sees Tommy and she replied that he often comes to the minor league team's games. She often chats with him there.
If you want an objective look at baseball, the Dodgers, the modern game, or anything else, go elsewhere. This book is for those who loved watching Tommy Lasorda manage.
I was never so moved by baseball as when Tommy's crew won the 1988 World Series with a bunch of players most other teams would have sent to the minors. But they all believed and they achieved. I still tear up thinking about that series and the incredible courage they displayed.
I also owe Tommy and the Dodgers for letting me watch them win the 1981 series in Yankee Stadium. I didn't know Yankee fans could be so quiet.
Bill Plaschke knows Tommy and does a good job of mixing up today, yesterday, stories about the old times, and what Tommy plans to do next into the same stream of consciousness. It's like being with Tommy.
May God bless Frank McCourt for buying the Dodgers and putting Tommy back into the middle of things where he belongs.
Summary of I Live for This!: Baseball's Last True Believer
An award-winning sportswriter shows us one of baseball's most famous and enduring legends as we've never seen him before, revealing the secrets of his amazing, unlikely success and his unvarnished opinions on the state of the game.Tommy Lasorda is perhaps baseball's most famous and popular figure. At seventy-nine, after twenty years of managing and fifty-seven years with one franchise, this Hall of Famer still suits up in Dodger Blue every day. He also keeps a travel schedule that would dizzy the most frequent of frequent fliers. The embodiment of the American dream, Lasorda went from a scrawny, overlooked Italian kid of average ability to become one of the world's most recognizable baseball faces. And he fought for it every step of the way.
In I Live for This Bill Plaschke strips the veneer from one of baseball's last living legends to show how grit and determination really can transform a life. We think we know this jovial manager from the rah-rah style that has always raised eyebrows in the world of baseball. Some view him as an anachronism. Some love him like Santa Claus. But there's one thing they all agree on: Lasorda is a success.
With gleaming insight and remarkable candor, Plaschke takes us inside the day-to-day world of this baseball great to reveal a side of Lasorda that few people really know. And along the way, we're treated to some of the most outrageous stories in sports. We also discover Lasorda's unshakable opinions about what plagues baseball today.
Bravely and brilliantly, I Live for This dissects the personality to give us the person. In the end we're left with an indelible portrait of a legend that, if Lasorda has anything to say about it, we won't ever forget.
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