Tommy Lasorda, the legendary Hall of Fame manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, got a birthday present of a lifetime Tuesday. On the day he turned 82, he had his portrait hung in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
“Tommy is larger than life, and now we’re all going to know it,” said Dodgers owner Jamie McCourt of the 60-inch-by-50-inch painting.
“You’ve visited 23 countries, made friends in all of them. Sampled the food in all of them, too, I’d imagine,” added MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, who flew in from Milwaukee for the occasion.
“After listening to Jamie and the commissioner, I felt like I died,” quipped Lasorda when he took the microphone. “I can’t believe something like this has happened to me. Right now I feel like my mother’s going to wake me up” from a dream.
After the program, the crowd moved upstairs, where the painting was installed just behind the reception desk, and across from Shepard Fairey’s famous “HOPE” poster of President Obama.
Lasorda’s friends couldn’t have picked a more respected artist to paint him, either. Everett Raymond Kinstler has painted more than 1,200 portraits, including 50 cabinet members and six presidents. His portraits of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan are official White House portraits.
On hand for Lasorda’s honor: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen; current Dodger Manager Joe Torre; ex-Dodgers Steve Garvey, Tom Paciorek and Rick Honeycutt; Nationals owner Mark Lerner; and Mike Piazza’s father Vince Piazza, who grew up near Lasorda.
On Monday night, Lasorda’s friends and family hosted a lavish dinner celebration for him at Il Mulino New York on Vermont Avenue. On the menu: ravioli porcini, rigatoni bolognese, antipasto, a custom-made Dodgers birthday cake and wines from the skipper’s own Lasorda Wines in Italy.
