The season ended badly for the Dodgers over a month ago, but I’ve been keeping busy. You don’t stop doing a job just because you’re fired. As an official advisor to the chairman for the Dodgers, I’ve been bending Frank McCourt’s ear all season, trying to keep him from making even more mistakes, especially since that know-nothing GM Paul DePasta never returned my phone calls. I would’ve told him that Paul LoDuca is worth 15 J.D. Drews, and that they should have kept Jeff Kent’s bad attitude away from this great city! But he wouldn’t listen to me because he’s got some fancy degree, and the Dodgers were left with one of the worst teams in baseball.

And then McCourt listened to DePodestro and fired Jim Tracy, the one guy left on the team that bled Dodger Blue when he wasn’t losing. I mean, he wasn’t Walter Alston, but who is? I’m not even Walter Alston (though I’m pretty close). Heck, Walter Alston isn’t even Walter Alston anymore! That was the last camel’s straw I wanted to see broken, Tracy’s firing. Drastic times call for drastic measures, so I went on the offensive. I went on a mission to save LA baseball!

I went to work right after DePodsednik went on vacation. Really, who goes on vacation when you’ve got a baseball team to manage? That’s a sign right there that he’s not all right up in his head. First, I hired a bunch of hackers to break into Paul’s e-mail account and spam everyone in the Dodger organization with e-mails from Nigerian businessmen and software salesman and pharmecutical companies and eBay account verifiers, all with Paul’s e-mail address prominently featured. (I got the idea from Billy Plaschke – he’s a great guy, and a fantastic writer. If I were head of the Writer’s Hall of Fame, he’d be first ballot every year, and twice on leap years!)

Then I prankcalled Frank McCourt’s wife as Paul and talked dirty to her. I’d say, “Hello, Ms. McCourt, this is Paul PeTostada, General Managers of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I’m calling from Italy on my overpriced cellphone on your dime, and I want to know what you’re wearing because you excite me in a sexual way.” And then I’d tell her what I’d do to her in an Olive Garden bathroom with the free unlimited breadsticks. I did this 10 times a day from pay phones all over Los Angeles. This is LA baseball!

I then called all of the candidates that Pondeboat wanted as manager and told them that Paul told me to tell them to go pound sand. I then called good old Orel Hershiser and connsumate professional Bobby Valentine (as myself!) and told them to hang tight because there was going to be a lot of business going down. On the Tuesday before the firing, I received a call from Frank McCourt asking what was going on with the prank phone calls to his wife, and all the spam, and the open jar of pig’s feet that he found in his bed. I said I don’t know. I was lying! He said that if Paul Sopesada didn’t call him and apologize, then he was gonna do something drastic. My plan was working! Then I called my buddy Pat Gillick and my buddy Jim Bowden and my buddy Dallas Green and my buddy Branch Rickey told them to pack their bags because they was going to start playing with the big boys. They were gonna start playing LA baseball!

For the piece of resistance, I called up Jason Grimsley and had him break into DePastrami’s office. I had him place copies of Chicken Hawk (a La Bamba documentary), Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom, and Mein Kampf all over his desk – whatever, it’s what the talking Angelyne billboard said to do. I also told Grimsley to tack up all sorts of tacky teen idol posters on the wall – Ricky Nelson, Bobby Sherman, James Dean, The Monkees, the works! Oh – and Plaschke also said that there should be posters of Adrian Beltre with moustaches and fake Johnsons and blacked-out teeth all over the place, so he did that. He also scattered lots of scrap paper doodles I made saying “MCCOURT SUX COMPUTERS ROX!” and “2+2 = SHUT THE HEE SEOP UP” and elitist Harvard stuff like that. For the cherry on the Sunday, Grimsley (a great guy, and a heckuva Bocce Ball player – he can be pitching coach!) put a dead skunk in his chair and skunk guts all over the floor. Come Friday morning, there were folks breaking down the door to see what the stink was! No one ever goes into Paul’s office, anyway – imagine how shocked they were to see all that stuff! When Frank called me up to ask what I’d do in his shoes, I said to fire that DePanera guy and hire a real GM like Pat Gillick or Branch Rickey, and someone with managerial qualities, like Orel Hershiser or Bobby Valentine. And that’s what happened! LA baseball was saved!

This off season is a key off-season for the Dodgers, and it’s important that they go into it with a fresh start and fresh blood. There are plenty of free agents out there that can do right by the glory and greatness of Dodger baseball. That kid in Chicago, Paul Konerko, for instance – he’s a great hitter! I’d sign him for 10 years, though the White Sox would be stupid to let him go. No one can resist the glamour of Los Angeles, though. I’d also sign Johnny Damon, Billy Wagner, Reggie Sanders, Rafael Furcal, Bill Mueller, B.J. Surhoff, Bernie Williams, and former Dodger greats Brian Jordan, Jose Vizcaino, and Lenny Harris. You need veteran leadership and depth up the middle to play LA baseball! Maybe I can get Pedro Guerrero to come out of retirement. He was a great hitter, and smart, too!

I’d also get rid of anyone that DePadsoda signed, because those guys aren’t true Dodgers. Goodbye, J.D. Drew and your brittle bones! Go back to your agent! Goodbye, Jeff Kent and your pickup trucks! Goodbye, Hee Seop Choi and your bad swing! And goodbye to all those awful starting pitcher. You chumps couldn’t hold Don Drysdale’s jock strap’s jock strap! I’d keep Jason Phillips, Ceaesar Iztouriz, and Scott Erickson, because they’re gamers and they play the game right. I’d also talk to Eric Gagne about sucking it up and taking one for the team – you can’t have your best pitcher sitting on the sidelines with an injury while the rest of the team’s out there trying to win a World Series! That’s not how it works!

Los Angeles has a reputation to uphold, and I think we can do something about living up to that reputation right now if we make the right moves. And then I can stop apologizing to fans on behalf of the Dodgers for another bad season. And, now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to call my good friend Larry Lucchino and congratulate him for his good fortune. Maybe we’ll see each other in the Fall Classic next year! Look out for 2006! This is LA baseball!

Tommy Lasorda once lost 30 pounds in three months, and never felt better in his life. He blogs at MLB.com.