Tommy Lasorda holds forth on ‘ everything

Suffice it to say that Tommy Lasorda couldn’t get elected to anything.
The Hall of Fame skipper for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who was a correspondents dinner guest of the Los Angeles Times, is famously free with his opinions, and Saturday night was no exception.

Suffice it to say that Tommy Lasorda couldn’t get elected to anything.

The Hall of Fame skipper for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who was a correspondents dinner guest of the Los Angeles Times, is famously free with his opinions, and Saturday night was no exception.

The diminutive Lasorda generously engaged scores of well-wishers and baseball buffs, although most could be seen getting Lasorda’s nose in their face or his finger in their chest, umpire-style, as he made his point.

So it was with The Hill.

When we asked him if he thought Barry Bonds had used steroids, he replied, “Absolutely. He’s a cheater, and he should be kicked out of baseball!”

Growing increasingly animated, he likened Bonds to Pete Rose and even the Chicago “Black Sox” of 1919, all of whom are still banned from the game and the Hall of Fame.

Then came the index finger, right in our chest, as conversation turned to Mark McGwire’s testimony before Congress last year.

“Mark McGwire says he doesn’t want to talk about the past,” Lasorda said. “If he didn’t do it, he’d want to talk about the past!”

Lasorda approved of Congress’s steroid hearings, reasoning that lawmakers are worried about the “500,000 high school kids taking steroids, not these a—holes” in the big leagues today.

Lasorda, a longtime resident of Los Angeles, was also heard discussing the immigration crisis. “These are people who have broken the law,” he cried. “You can’t come here illegally.”

Seen and heard at the correspondents dinner

Scalia’s big night: Almost alone among older partygoers, Justice Antonin Scalia didn’t seem to mind the thumping music at the Bloomberg after-party. Corona in hand, Scalia lingered long at the Macedonian Embassy. In a scene that couldn’t happen anywhere else, he made his way to a corner table to exchange pleasantries with Doris Roberts, of “Everybody Loves Raymond” fame. Had he gone to the Reuters afterparty, he could have enjoyed an “Alito” cocktail in honor of the newest Italian-American conservative on the court, but he opted for the Italian restaurant instead. At Caf