It was at the baseball winter meetings in December 1990 that I passed by Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda and got an unexpected earful.
He was holding court near the media workroom at the Hyatt Regency-O’Hare Hotel outside Chicago and noticed me trying to slip by on the way to chase down some unfounded Orioles trade rumor. I almost made a clean getaway.
“You see that guy over there,” Tommy boomed. “That guy is the dumbest guy in the world. He moved from the beach in Southern California to freaking Baltimore. Can you believe that?”
Everybody laughed because it seemed so absurd.