Rick Sutcliffe and Tommy Lasorda shared a laugh behind the batting cage at Wrigley Field before a Los Angeles Dodgers-Chicago Cubs game in 2017 — 36 years after Sutcliffe destroyed Lasorda’s storied manager’s office at Dodger Stadium.
“I have two World Series rings thanks to two people,” said Sutcliffe, a spring training coach and unofficial ambassador for the Cubs. “Joe Maddon and Tommy Lasorda.”
A light-hitting infielder could feel like a batting champion and an unheralded pitching prospect could think like a Cy Young Award winner after listening to the fiery speeches of Lasorda, a 1997 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee who died at 93.