Thirty=two years ago, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda took a swing as the Phillies' beloved mascot.
Tommy Lasorda lost his cool. The Phillie Phanatic nearly lost his head. Sports fans across the world lost their minds 36 years ago at the sight of the cartoonish clashTommy Lasorda lost his cool. The Phillie Phanatic — that furry, flightless bird out of the Galapagos archipelago — nearly lost his head.
Wherever his speaking engagements take him, one of the first questions — if not THE first — asked of Raymond is this: What was up with the Phanatic and his greatest foil, Tommy Lasorda?“He thought it was all in good fun,” Raymond said Wednesday as he recalled the anniversary. “Apparently it wasn’t. I was trying to make sense of it.”
Lasorda finally secured his Dodgers uniforms for the first two games of the series. For the third, Raymond says he bought a generic Dodgers jersey and had Lasorda’s name embroidered on the back. He dressed a dummy in the uniform and wagged it in Lasorda’s face. Lasorda walked out of the dugout and again seemed to play along. He marched toward the Phanatic, then stopped and pushed the mascot’s beloved four-wheeler away from him toward the dugout.
The 5-foot-10 Lasorda tipped the scale well past 200 pounds; he openly discussed his weight issues and signed high-profile endorsement deals with leading liquid diet supplements at the time.“The Phillie Phanatic is a good friend of mine,” Lasorda said. “He’s a fine young man. But he went a little too far.”“Tommy had that dual personality,” Raymond said. “You think you knew him and then suddenly you somehow crossed some line that he thinks is sacred and he’ll eat you alive. That’s what happened.
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Phillie Phanatic friend remembers anniversary of when Dodgers manager Lasorda 'beat up a Muppet'Tommy Lasorda lost his cool. The Phillie Phanatic nearly lost his head. Sports fans across the world lost their minds 36 years ago at the sight of the cartoonish clash that involved the portly Los Angeles Dodgers manager, a life-sized mannequin beaten in effigy and the potbellied Phanatic.
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Phillie Phanatic friend remembers anniversary of when Dodgers manager Lasorda 'beat up a Muppet'Tommy Lasorda lost his cool. The Phillie Phanatic nearly lost his head. Sports fans across the world lost their minds 36 years ago at the sight of the cartoonish clash that involved the portly Los Angeles Dodgers manager, a life-sized mannequin beaten in effigy and the potbellied Phanatic.
Read more »
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