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Sports Sep 22, 2022
Roz Wyman in 1964. | Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Times/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
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Former Los Angeles Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman Thursday evening received the inaugural Tommy Lasorda I Bleed Dodger Blue Award, which will be given to a member of the Los Angeles community that embodies the passion, enthusiasm and love for the Dodgers Lasorda possessed.
Lasorda’s daughter Laura Lasorda presented the award to Wyman’s grandchildren Eugene and Samantha Wyman during pregame ceremonies before the game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium. The presentation came on the 95th anniversary of the birth of the Hall of Famer who managed the Dodgers from 1976-96. Lasorda died in 2021 at age 93.
The award will annually be presented on or around the anniversary of Lasorda’s birth.
“The name Tommy Lasorda is synonymous with the Dodgers, so it’s only fitting that we introduce a new award which encompasses his incredible passion for the organization,” Dodger President and CEO Stan Kasten said. “For the inaugural award, we have selected Roz Wyman because without her, there might never have been a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.
“Her persistent pursuit and dedication to ensuring the team came to Los Angeles embodies the concept of the Tommy Lasorda I Bleed Dodger Blue Award to a tee.”
Wyman called being part of Lasorda’s legacy “a great honor.”
“He was a very dear friend of mine and I’ll always remember him for telling me `If it wasn’t for Roz Wyman, I would be a shoe salesman,”‘ said Wyman, who has been a season ticket holder at Dodger Stadium since it opened in 1962.
Wyman was elected to the council in 1953 at the age of 22, the youngest person elected to the body and the second woman, representing the Westside’s Fifth District, winning what the Los Angeles Times described at the time as a “door-to-door, housewife-to-housewife campaign.”
During that campaign, Wyman called for bringing Major League Baseball to Los Angeles and was among the leaders in the effort to bring the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. She is the only surviving person involved in negotiating with then-Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley to bring the team to Los Angeles.
“If it wasn’t for the work of (Wyman), Dodger history and the history of Los Angeles could be very, very different,” former Dodger owner Peter O’Malley told the City Council at a 2012 meeting in support of an effort to have the Palms Recreation Center named for Wyman, which was approved later that year by the Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners.
“No one deserves more credit … for the Dodgers being here, for Dodger Stadium and for the Major League Baseball teams to come to the West Coast.”
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