Little Leaguers go to the show

By Bruce Sayler - 08/27/2008

DODGER LEGEND TOMMY LASORDA gives a speech to the Butte Junior baseball League players. TheButte team was in California playing in the Western Regional tournament.PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK BOND

Not a lot of their youth has been wasted on "what-coulda-beens." Onrushing maturity, it seems, has instead instilled an appreciation for the moment.

The time, framed now by lifelong memory under construction, looked even better because it seemed relished both ways.

It was the night the Butte boys met the Dodger legend.

A Butte connection snagged the junior baseball all-star team tickets to an Arizona Diamondbacks-Dodgers game last month when the boys were in Aliso Viejo, Calif., (near L.A.) playing in the Western Regional tournament as Montana champions.

Former Butte Copper Kings assistant general manager Trey Magnuson is now the Dodgers scouting coordinator. He is also the son of Butte schoolteacher Lloyd Magnuson and he led the boys and their coaches and chaperones down a hallway within Dodger Stadium.

A gray-haired round man stepped out from an office doorway and looked quite familiar to the coaches and chaperones, if not the 14-and-15-year-old boys.

"I thought to myself, ‘that sure looks like Tommy Lasorda,' "chaperone Ned Ellingwood, the Butte junor baseball league director, said.

And it still looked like him when the door shut behind the team in a meeting room hours before game time and Lasorda strode toward the head of the table.

Lasorda is in the Baseball Hall of Fame as a manager and now serves the Los Angeles ballclub as special advisor to the chairman.

"He said dream big and always follow your dreams," said Butte ballplayer Kevin Ellingwood, Ned's son.

The other boys took a bit from Lasorda's talk, too, as they sat wide-eyed at a table to listen to his advice.

"He said it goes family, education and athletics. In that order," said player Brock Bond.

"Always play for the name on the front of your shirt, not for the name on the back," noted Sean Curran.

Team members Tyler Baker, Clay Brozovich, Bucky Bugni, Buzzy Davies, Shawn Duffy, Anthony Hoffman, Zach Kasperick, Jared Kingston and Kelly Kissell also were part of the Lasorda audience. So were coach Mark Bond, manager Dennis Bugni, and Bugni's younger son, Monk, along with Ned Ellingwood.

The Bugnis, fervent Dodgers fans, were dressed in Dodger blue, the color Lasorda always claimed he bred. Dennis and Monk wore it top to bottom, the group said, and Bucky wore it under his Butte All-Stars uniform the boys were asked to don for admission to the game.

"(Lasorda) said he was good friends with (Butte native, resident and retired big-league baseball executive) Tom Mulcahy," Kevin Ellingwood said. "So he knows how good Butte people are, he said, and how tough they are.

"He said if these kids are anything near the strength and character of Tommy Mulcahy, they're great kids," Ned Ellingwood said. "And they are." The team, the first from Butte to travel to the age-group Western Regional since Mark Bond played on one in 1972, was 2-and-2 in the tournament, beating Oregon and Washington champions, but losing to those from California and Nevada.

So, the trip to the Dodgers ballpark soothed the losses some in what really was a pretty good showing for the Butte team. Teams they lost to play year-round.

The regional champions were the Hawaii all-stars, and they lost 3-1 in the eventual Junior Baseball World Series, Ned Ellingwood said.

The coaches came away feeling good about the team's effort and that Montana kids really can, now, compete with anyone, Mark Bond said.

The game they saw at Dodger Stadium was a dandy. Arizona ace Brandon Webb, a candidate this year to win his second Cy Young Award, defeated the Dodgers 2-1.

The boys had some fun, too, with the L.A. fans. The Butte uniforms were copper and black, similar to the black-and-orange worn by the Dodgers' hated rivals, the San Francisco Giants.

So, when Brock Bond stepped out onto the field, with his Giants-looking jersey and "Bond" printed across the back of it, he caught an earful from the crowd, who had now non-playing San Francisco star Barry Bonds on the mind.

Magnuson met the group at the ballpark and took the team principals to the meeting room for the gathering with Lasorda. The parents were taken to center field where they shagged balls for Dodgers batting practice.

Magnuson surprised the bunch with game tickets for all.

"They treated us just great," Ned Ellingwood praised.

And during the walk through corridors is where Lasorda was first spotted. While Ellingwood thought the man looked like Lasorda, Dennis Bugni KNEW he was Lasorda. Bond and Ellingwood said Bugni, with Monk by the hand, rushed to Lasorda and instroduced himself to the Dodger great.

"Mr. Lasorda, I'm Dennis Bugni from Butte and I'm glad to meet you," they said Bugni said as he grabbed the Hall of Famer's hand.

"I'm glad to meet you, too," they said was Lasorda's response.

Lasorda is one of 16 Hall of Fame managers enshrined, he told the boys. But he is the only one who was a pitcher during his playing career.

"So don't' let anyone tell you pitchers can't coach," Kasperick said the manager ordered.

Members of the party said Lasorda walked to the door, two, three, maybe four times as if he was saying goodbye, only to return with some more words he wanted to bestow upon the young ears.

"He liked what he was doing," Mark Bond said.

"He was enjoying it," Ned Ellingwood said. "You could tell." Except for the Ellingwoods losing the transmission out of their truck in downtown L.A., uh, forcing and extended stay at the beach, the trip went so well.

Memories were created that will last lifetimes. They saw a great game and brushed with celebrity.

And they absorbed some precious words of wisdom from a bona fide expert in sports performance.

"He said that when you walk out on the field, you've got to think to yourself that you have to play better than the opposing position," Brock Bond said. "Like, if you play third base, play better than the first baseman. If you're shortstop, be better than the second baseman. He said that if everybody plays like that, the outcome will always go your way."