Fifty years ago today, Ted Williams, the newly minted manager of the Washington Senators, brought his squad to Dodgertown -- the Los Angeles Dodgers spring training complex in Vero Beach, Fla. The once innovative facility was no longer state-of-the-art, but Teddy Ballgame was gracious about it.
“This is the nicest camp I've seen,” he said. “This place has character.”
It had characters, too, including Tommy Lasorda, then the manager of the Dodgers Triple-A team. As the left-handed Lasorda threw batting practice that day, a puckish fan yelled that Lasorda didn't exactly remind anybody of Sandy Koufax, the future Hall of Famer who'd retired from the Dodgers three years earlier. “I throw just as hard as Koufax,” Lasorda told the heckler. “It just doesn't get up there as quick.”
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