Reports of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

(Baseball legend Tommy Lasorda was admitted to a hospital this week for a mild heart attack.  He was fully released this morning, and was invited to speak at a minor league ballpark this morning before joining the team in Seattle this weekend)

Ah...all right.  Doc said I gotta take it slow this week because even though everything checked out, I'm not supposed to push it.  I do need to keep the blood flowing, so if I could get a glass of water...

Folks, I don't want to put any of this on myself.  Baseball is a team game, and always will be.  The Dodgers arrived in Philly and everyone said we're in a funk.  Best record in the majors and we're in a funk?!  Shows what those windbag writers know.  I was gonna right the ship in this town real quick...and I think you know what that means...it means cheese-steak contest.  I hit all the local haunts.  Did Provolone instead of that other stuff, onions, peppers.  So, I'm taking bites of each and trying to take notes when I saw some girl looking at me funny.  You can never tell with these people in Philly.  Remember what I always said about Philadelphia: it's a family town.  Where else would you see 15 year old girls with babies?!  Haha!

(Yawn)  Oh man...trying not to get worked up.  Well, I should have been focused but then I wondered if I had chosen an establishment that wouldn't meet my standards.  Did this tour rep purposely give me a bad cheese-steak to take me down?  

Next thing I know I'm in a room, with doctors talking to each other.  I can't make heads or tails of what's going on, and no one's listening to me, so I ask "What the fuck is going on?"  Finally I hear that I had a mild heart attack.  Actually, folks, that was good news to me.  It wasn't food poisoning or anything like that.  The doctors reported all was fixed and, yes, I bleed Dodger Blue.  Only problem I had was when I had Wallach set up an IV of one of my award winning wines, and some nurse caught him putting in another bottle.

Thursday afternoon, I get a call from Lopes.  Says that the doctors weren't withholding information from me - they were just pissed off we swept the Phillies!  4 games in a row - how about that, you moron sportswriters!  You think we're...

(cough)  Right, right.  Calming down.  I didn't even get to have lobster at Bookbinder's.  All right, off to Seattle.  I see linguini and clams in my future.  Huh?  Oh, right.  Baseball is a wonderful game at any level, and I'm glad I'm here!

(crowd applauds)