The LA Times ran a piece on ballpark statues in which author Kevin Baxter noted Dodgers Stadium is amongst the clubs without one. While  Your Face Is A Sports Blog‘s Duke Of Everything rejects Sandy Koufax as a subject for not being “‘iconic’ enough”, he’s not without alternative suggestions.

I started to ask myself what the perfect statue would be to represent the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. If I just closed my eyes and thought “Los Angeles Dodgers”, what immediate associations did I have.

A few ideas came to mind:

  • Steve Garvey surrounded by children – dozens and dozens of children
  • A fan in a Raiders hat and Dodgers jersey pouring beer on a 6 year-old wearing a Giants hat
  • Jackie Robinson in Heaven, watching Al Campanis on God’s TV and weeping
  • Fred Claire giving Pedro Martinez a handshake and a plane ticket to Montreal

But the one thing that symbolized the Dodgers, more than anything else, would be this: Tommy Lasorda, naked except for a towel barely covering his sweaty midsection, at the post-game buffet filling his plate with mounds of linguini while screaming profanities at the clubhouse boys. It’s a mental image I picked up while reading John Feinstein’s “Play Ball” several years ago, and no amount of therapy has been able to scrub it from my memory. (Perhaps a more accurate statue would have two sides – one with Lasorda smiling and hugging kids, while the other had him foaming at the mouth about Dave Kingman – but I disgress.)

The Duke’s proposed Mets monument would feature “Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden playfully skiing down a mountain of blow”, which, I suppose on the old iconic-meter, scores a lot higher than David Cone whipping it out, Kevin Mitchell decapitating a cat, or the duo of Shane Spencer and Karim Garcia beating up the pizza delivery guy.