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Tuesday, September 19
Lasorda has his pregame speech set to go
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- Tommy Lasorda's speech is ready.
Throughout the Olympics, the Hall of Fame manager will rouse his minor-league roster with
his best major-league material.
|  | | Tommy Lasorda says winning a gold medal will mean more for more baseball fans than when his Dodgers won the World Series. |
He'll wave his arms, stab the air and grow more emotional with
each sentence about country, family and pride.
"I'll tell them: This is it. This is what you worked for,"
Lasorda said. "I have great confidence in you. I love you guys
very, very much. And just remember one thing: You represent the
greatest country in the world, so go out and do your job like
you're capable."
The speech is ready. Is the team?
The first Olympic baseball tournament with professionals gets
underway Sunday (Saturday night U.S. time) with two medal favorites
facing off. Cuba, Japan, the United States, Australia and South
Korea are considered the best among the eight-team field.
Japan is expected to start Daisuke Matsuzaka, his country's
version of the Chicago Cubs' Kerry Wood. Matsuzaka won the Rookie
of the Year award in 1999 for the Seibu Lions and is Japan's
pre-eminent player.
The Japanese have an edge in experience -- their major league
teams sent players to the Olympics. The United States has minor
league players and a Hall of Fame manager.
"We came here as the underdog, as I've supposedly heard," said
Lasorda, who won two World Series titles during his 20 years
managing the Los Angeles Dodgers. "In 1988, they said we didn't
belong on the same field with the Oakland Athletics and we beat
them in five games because our team wanted it more than they did.
"And that's what's going to happen with this team. They're
going to want it more than the other team and that's the way we're
going to win."
Former A's manager Tony La Russa might disagree. So might the
Japanese, the Cubans and others in the Olympic tournament. Medals
could be decided not by which teams want to win the most, but by
which teams handle the pressure best.
There's plenty of that to go around.
Japan is the only country to win medals in all four Olympic
tournaments, including the first two when baseball was a
demonstration sport. The Japanese are serious about living up to
tradition.
"When I was in high school, I aimed for the Olympics,"
Matsuzaka said. "I dreamed of the Olympics, but at the time I
didn't play very well. Now that I'm a professional, I've been
selected."
Norihiro Nakamura, a third baseman for the Osaka Kintetsu
Buffaloes, alluded to the pressure on the Japanese professionals to
win.
"I feel we have a load on our shoulders, but we're still aiming
for a medal," he said.
Their counterparts felt the same thing. Ernie Young, a
31-year-old outfielder who has played for Oakland, Kansas City and
Arizona, hasn't experienced anything like the Olympics.
"It's unbelievable," he said. "I've played in front of 59,000
in Yankee Stadium. When I step out there tomorrow, I'm going to
feel like I have about 100,000 out there because there's going to
be people around the world watching us play."
Lasorda doesn't flinch from the pressure to win. In his frequent
talks to the team, Lasorda has made the stakes clear.
"To me, this is bigger than the World Series, this is bigger
than the Dodgers, it's bigger than major league baseball," he
said. "It's bigger because it's representing the entire United
States of America.
"If we (the Dodgers) won the world championship, the Dodger
fans were happy, the Giants fans were unhappy, the Cincinnati Reds
fans were unhappy. We win this thing, the whole country is pulling
for us. We're going to do everything we can not to let our country
down."
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