Life's Pleasures Quote by Tommy Lasorda

Lasorda’s line reads like a shrug, but it’s really a rebuttal to a whole school of “professional distance” that treats leadership as a kind of quarantine. The premise he’s swatting away is familiar: you can’t be friends with the people you manage, because authority requires separation. His “I say why not” is pure Lasorda - blunt, impatient with etiquette, confident that the old rules are mostly about other people’s insecurities.

The intent is practical. Eating together is the simplest ritual of belonging: you break bread, swap stories, watch how someone carries themselves when the uniform comes off. In baseball’s long season, that’s not soft stuff; it’s durable glue. Lasorda is arguing that trust isn’t a pep talk, it’s accumulated proximity. You don’t build it only in the dugout, under the glare of performance, but in the mundane hours where hierarchies relax.

The subtext is also a flex: he’s saying he can handle the risks - the blurred boundaries, the accusations of favoritism, the possibility of losing the “mystique” of the manager. That confidence reflects his era and his persona. As the Dodgers’ dugout raconteur-in-chief, Lasorda built culture through presence, volume, and loyalty. The quote lands because it reframes a management taboo as a needless superstition, and it reminds you that teams aren’t spreadsheets. They’re human systems, and sometimes the most strategic move is simply showing up at the table.