Fullerton will pay tribute to Tommy Lasorda next month, celebrating baseball and Italy on what would have been the Hall of Famer’s 94th birthday in the city he called home for nearly seven decades.
On Sept. 22, city leaders will declare Tommy Lasorda Day, and kick off all-day festivities to honor the baseball great who managed the Los Angeles Dodgers for 20 years and came to be revered “worldwide, globally, as an ambassador for baseball,” said Fullerton Mayor Bruce Whitaker.
Lasorda died earlier this year after suffering a heart attack at his Fullerton home.
“He passed just a week in to this new year … and he was, you know, arguably the most famous, most well known celebrity in the city at the time,” Whitaker said. “And I felt badly at the time, because with the lockdown and the pandemic, we weren’t able to really pay tribute to him.”
Whitaker said he posted on Facebook soliciting ideas for ways to pay homage to the baseball great. He received one from a documentary film director, Robert Angotti, who had interviewed Lasorda in the past, suggesting Fullerton unite with the Italian hometown of Lasorda’s father, Tollo, Italy, in a symbolic partnership. Fullerton’s City Council and Sister City Association were all in favor, the mayor said.
“When Tommy passed earlier this year, it was a traumatic event in Tollo,” Whitaker said.
On Lasorda’s birthday, city leaders will host a signing ceremony in the morning, during which Whitaker will officially authorize the Sister City agreement with the mayor of Tollo, Angelo Radica, over a virtual video call. At a press conference on the Amerige Park Baseball Field afterward, Whitaker will proclaim Sept. 22 Tommy Lasorda Day, “and we’re hoping that it will be an annual event,” he said.
Throughout the day, regular showings of Angotti’s documentary, “Italian American Baseball Family,” which features Lasorda, will be held at the Fullerton Community Center, and an exhibition of the Hall of Famer will be on display in the Fullerton Museum Center.
Italian restaurants and sports bars are being encouraged to take part in the day’s celebrations, “in their own style, and in their own way of choosing,” Whitaker said.
“It’ll be a day-long celebration throughout the city,” he said.
The spirited baseball titan who steered the Dodgers to two World Series titles and Team USA to an Olympic gold medal in 2000 made Fullerton his home for 68 years, choosing the location due to the close proximity to his wife’s best friend, Whitaker said.
“The best thing about Tommy, I think, the features that we like about him, what makes him extraordinary, is that for his notoriety and his fame and his wherewithal, he could have lived anywhere, but he stayed in a tract home in Fullerton for 68 years,” Whitaker said. “You could always tell it was Tommy’s house when you came down Maxzim (Avenue), because there was a large satellite dish in his backyard.
“He was following games from all over.”
An “effervescent” man with a big personality, Lasorda left an indelible mark on the game of baseball and the city, though he kept a low profile around town, the mayor said.
“I think it’s only right and proper that we would really pay at least a tribute to someone like Tommy, who was an everyman in many respects, but also, you know, achieved quite a bit in his lifetime,” Whitaker said. “And he never sought the spotlight in Fullerton, even though he lived there for almost seven decades.”
