Remembering Tommy Lasorda vs Youppi! 32 years later

If you’ve been around baseball for a long period of time, there's a significant chance you’ve heard of this little slice of Dodgers’ history. Today marks 32 years that Tommy Lasorda got a mascot thrown out of a game that lasted over six hours.

The Montreal Expos had a mascot name Youppi! before they moved and became the Washington Nationals. To the delight of those in attendance that night in Canada, Youppi! got under Lasorda’s skin until 3B umpire Bob Davidson threw him out.

Our own Eric Stephen did a deep dive on Lasorda and mascots last year and included some great details.

On this day in 1989, the Dodgers and Expos were embroiled in a marathon, LA’s second 22-inning game of the season. But before Rick Dempsey won the game in Montreal with a solo home run, and before Ross Porter set a record for longest solo television broadcast, Lasorda had his run-in with the Expos mascot.

After a disputed call and an argument on the field, Lasorda returned to the dugout to see Youppi! jumping on the top of the Dodgers dugout, which was metal. The constant banging only annoyed Lasorda more. After the game went into extra innings, around the 11th inning, Youppi! changed into pajamas, and got back on top of the Dodgers dugout and pretended to sleep.

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“You tell that guy to get off of that dugout,” Lasorda yelled from the dugout. Ultimately, Lasorda convinced home plate umpire Bob Davidson to eject Youppi! from the game, to a chorus of boos from the Montreal faithful.

As for the game, here is the link to that box score, a game in which Orel Hershiser pitched the first seven innings.

Other Dodger links and news

We already linked to the fun story of how the Dodgers set the order of picks for their fantasy football league. Here is a photo of what the group was looking at:

• Jay Jaffe over at Fangraphs, looked into the bullpen of the Rays and Dodgers.