Aspiring tool-ery

OK, 2021. So what's your deal?

"I CAN SO be just as big a dirtbag as 2020"?

"Hold my beer, 2020"?

"Which part of your brand new carpet do you want me to barf/poop/drain the lizard on?"? 

Because, listen, we're only eight days in, and already you're being a giant tool. Hooterville Coup Attempt and Tommy Lasorda checking out in one week?

Yes, that's right, folks. Tommy Dodger has shuffled off, and there goes another part of the Blob's Sportsball childhood. He was 93, which means at least he lived the full complement. And  he lived long enough to see the Trolley Dodgers win the World Series one more time, so he had that going for him.

Tommy belonged to a different time in baseball, a time before the National Pastime had Passed its Time. He belonged to a time of Kirk Gibson hitting limp-off homers and Jack Buck not believing what he just saw, and fierce rivalries involving Those People In Cincinnati. He belonged to Steve Garvey and Ron Cey and Fernandomania and Bill Buckner before his legs went away.

Nobody was doing creatine or HGH or the hard PEDs then. But they were gobbling amphetamines like M&Ms to get them through day games after night games, which was a difference only in perception. 

Tommy?

Tommy was mainlining tripe and pasta, mostly, and filling the vital role of Baseball Celebrity Manager. He hung with politicians and Hollywood types out there in Chavez Ravine, and nightly held court for the media. He talked and talked and talked and talked, Tommy did. Once, famously, he talked for an impressive length of time using barely a word any of the beat guys could print.

All of that obscured the fact Tommy knew his baseball, too. On his watch, Dodger Blue averaged 76 wins across 21 summers, took four National League pennants and won the World Series twice. 

You either loved Tommy or despised him, depending on which side of the Ohio line you were on. But you always knew he was there, and baseball's collage in those years wasn't complete without him.

Now he's just another piece of a gone past. 

Wipe that smirk off your face, 2021.