Lasorda

Soccer Wave swamps Crunch, 19-6, wins NPSL championship Michael Richardson scored three goals to power the Milwaukee Wave past the Cleveland Crunch, 19-6, to win the NPSL Finals last night. The Wave became the first team in the league's 16-year history to lose the first game of the best-of-five finals at home and rebound to win the championship. Milwaukee, which won its first title in 1998, kept the defending champion Crunch from winning its fourth title in the past six years. Richardson had a three-point goal and a two-pointer in an 8-0 run in the first half to spark the Wave from a 2-0 deficit to an 11-6 halftime lead.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have been in almost constant turmoil since the club was acquired by Fox Sports earlier this year, and that doesn't seem likely to change any time soon.The lackluster performance of the club over the past couple of weeks has almost assured that the organization will undergo another management shake-up at the end of the season.Interim manager Glenn Hoffman likely will be replaced, and interim general manager Tom Lasorda is at work trying to replace himself.Lasorda said Friday he will interview Florida Marlins general manager Dave Dombrowski for the GM job, lending belated credence to rumors earlier this year that both Dombrowski and Marlins manager Jim Leyland could uproot to Los Angeles at the end of the year.

The Los Angeles Dodgers used to be the most stable organization in major-league baseball, but it has taken Fox Sports just three months to turn the team upside down.The new ownership group cleaned house late Sunday night, firing manager Bill Russell and general manager Fred Claire in the franchise's most dramatic front-office shake-up in a half-century.Russell has been replaced on an interim basis by Triple-A manager and former major-league shortstop Glenn Hoffman. Claire has been replaced at least temporarily by Hall of Fame former manager Tom Lasorda, who had been rumored to be lobbying for the position with Fox executives even before former club president Peter O'Malley finalized the sale of the team in March.

PHILADELPHIA -- By the end of this weekend, there could be a new name for the rustic, heretofore peaceful village of Cooperstown, N.Y.: Lasordatown.This afternoon, Norristown, Pa.'s winningest citizen, Mr. Thomas C. Lasorda, will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. At last count, 38 buses full of people were expected to rampage north to be present for this historic occasion."From all indications," said Hall of Fame public relations director Jeff Idelson, "Norristown may be a very barren area Sunday."

DodgersWhere they're coming from: A tumultuous season during which longtime manager Tom Lasorda retired and CF Brett Butler came back from throat cancer. Los Angeles lost its last four games, blowing the NL West lead and finishing second at 90-72. The Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs in three games by the Braves.Where they're going: The best pitching staff in baseball and a lineup with some of the best young hitters in the game will get the Dodgers back to the playoffs, where they'll be looking to end a six-game losing streak.

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- For perhaps the first time in his 52-year baseball career, Tom Lasorda was speechless.He held the telephone to his ear and tears welled in his eyes as Edward Stack of the National Baseball Hall of Fame relayed the news. Lasorda, the man who bled Dodger blue until his heart nearly gave out last season, will be enshrined in Cooperstown on Aug. 3, just months after health problems forced him to end his 20-year managerial career."I am deeply overwhelmed," Lasorda mumbled into the phone.

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Things have never been so different. The Los Angeles Dodgers have opened spring training with a new manager for the first time in 20 years and with the ownership of the franchise soon to change for the first time in more than a half-century.Things have a way of staying the same. New manager Bill Russell runs the club through the same drills that Tom Lasorda ran, and Walter Alston before him. Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax observes a group of young pitchers throwing at the "strings," a Dodgers workout routine that was in place long before a boyish Koufax struggled to keep the ball inside the same string-framed strike zone in the mid-1950s.

Rocky Coppinger struggled in his start against the Seattle Mariners on Thursday night, but the reason is no mystery.The rookie right-hander, who gave up a career-high eight runs to the Mariners in 4 1/3 innings, said he had mechanical problems with his delivery. He said he altered his arm motion and was throwing across his body. Pitching coach Pat Dobson was the one who picked out the flaw and has talked with Coppinger about it."It felt a lot different," Coppinger said. "I was missing something.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Tommy Lasorda, who stepped down as manager of the Dodgers on Monday, used to wage war with Davey Johnson when Johnson managed the New York Mets. Johnson recalled, very specifically, moments from the wild 1988 NL playoffs, when the Dodgers beat the Mets in seven games."He's been so great for baseball," Johnson said, "and he's been a great friend of mine. To me, he's a Hall of Famer, unquestionably. He's had such a great career."Johnson thought Lasorda, coming back from heart trouble, made the right decision in stepping down.

LOS ANGELES -- He began his managerial career as a pitcher who had never won a game in the major leagues. Two decades later, Tom Lasorda had made himself the living symbol of one of sports' most storied franchises.But yesterday, a baseball era ended when Lasorda announced he was stepping down, for health reasons, as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers after 20 years.He will be succeeded by his friend and protege, Bill Russell, who will remain until the end of the season, at least.Lasorda, 68, said he had been cleared by his doctors to manage again, five weeks after suffering the mild heart attack that forced him to leave the club June 24. He also said Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley had left the door open for his return, saying: "That uniform is waiting for you."