This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.
The most obvious choices for No. 2:
Tommy Lasorda: Los Angeles Dodgers
Kawhi Leonard: Los Angeles Clippers
Derek Fisher: Los Angeles Lakers
The not-so-obvious choices for No. 2:
Morley Drury: USC football
Lonzo Ball: Chino Hills High basketball, UCLA basketball, Los Angeles Lakers
Gianna Bryant: Mamba Academy basketball
Robert Woods: USC football, Los Angeles Rams
Adam Kennedy: Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels
Cobi Jones: UCLA soccer
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: Los Angeles Clippers
The most interesting story for No. 2:
Lonzo Ball: Chino Hills High basketball guard (2012-13 to 2015-16), UCLA basketball guard (2016-17), Los Angeles Lakers guard (2017-18 to 2018-19)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Anaheim, Chino, Westwood (UCLA), Los Angeles (Staples Center), plus C anoga Park, Long Beach
For the sake of historical and hysterical accuracy, and providing what little sanity is left as possible guardrails, an expanded bibliography will be included here:
The father:
LaVar Ball: West L.A. College basketball (1985-86 to 1986-87), Cal State L.A. basketball (1989-90), Long Beach City College football (1991) via Westchester High and Canoga Park High (1983-86)
The mother:
Tina Slatinsky: Cal State Los Angeles softball (1990)
The brothers:
LiAngelo Ball: Chino Hills High basketball (2013-14 to 2016-17), UCLA basketball guard (2017-18), Los Angeles Ballers (2018)
LaMelo Ball: Chino Hills High basketball (2015-16 to 2016-17), Los Angeles Ballers (2018)
Even though they had their own six-year run on a Facebook reality show, “Ball in the Family,” this 21st Century version of “My Three Sons” was a celebrity family affair some cared to forget. But they couldn’t. The family wouldn’t let that happen.
Especially LaVar Ball.
“Speak it into existence,” LaVar told ESPN The Magazine in 2017 about his hoop dreams for his kids. “Keep talking about it until it happens.”
Why not all three of kids on the same NBA team?
“Nobody has ever built a franchise around a family,” LaVar said told The Association on Fox in 2021. “That’s why I’m saying, do something new. Build around the Ball boys and watch what happens.”
A male-driven hit-and-run version of the Kardashians started with LaVar and Tina meeting up at Cal State L.A., marrying in 1997, living in Anaheim, moving to Chino, and parenting Lonzo, LiAngelo and LaMelo into three NBA draft picks and with various degrees of success. Some even in basketball.
When the family was named the 2017 Southern California News Group Sports Persons of the Year, it was based on entities such as TheRinger.com referring to Lonzo Ball as a “Superstar for the Reddit Generation,” TheComeback.com saying “sports content producers need eyeballs right now, and they’ve found a savior in Lonzo and LaVar Ball,” and SBNation.com calling the whole package as disruptors.
There was the 2017 headline in the Los Angeles Daily News: “How LaVar Ball and his 3 sons intend to change basketball forever.”
So, how’d that go?
Pardon the interruption, but the Balls were on your TVs, your magazines, your newspapers, your sports-talk shows, living rent-free in your subconscious. Because it didn’t seem to make sense, until it did.
It started with LaVar Ball as a football and basketball player, at Westchester High and Canoga Park High in Van Nuys. He had two older brothers, LaFrance and LaValle. He had two younger brothers, LaRenzo and LaShon.
Well La-de-da.
LaVar played both sports in college, with mixed results. At West L.A. College, at Washington State University, back at Cal State Los Angeles for basketball. Long Beach City College and, for two weeks, Washington State University, for football.
He played in the NBA Summer Pro League for a free-agent team in 1992.
LaVar got to wear a New York Jets’ No. 99 jersey for one team photo, and also was in a Carolina Panthers’ team photo to document his NFL acumen. He also played on the World League of American Football’s London Monarchs. All of which was made prominent on a resume to further his idea that he could be a personal trainer.
LaVar and Tina met at CSLA, with LaVar not hiding the fact he was attracted to her 6-foot stature.
“That’s why I married my wife … with the way I’m built, and the way she’s built, I knew I was going to have three killers,” LaVar told CBS Sports in 2015. “So this thing was planned long ago. Because I knew if you put two basketball players together, this is what you’re going to get.”
His three sons would be the prime targets of his training.
LaVar Ball Madness had a method, he insisted. In a story titled “Between LaVar Ball and LaVar-ology,” pops told GQ magazine in 2017: “You thought Tiger Woods’ dad was crazy. You thought Michael Jackson’s dad was crazy. Venus and Serena’s dad was crazy. I’m on the right path! If I’m not crazy, they’re not good enough.”
Lonzo, born in the fall of 1997, was the No. 3 ranked player in the country following a senior season at Chino Hills High when he averaged a triple-double: 23.9 points, 11.3 rebounds and 11.7 assists, plus 4.7 steals. His team went 35-0. In 2025, on MaxPreps’ list of the Top 10 California high school athletes of the 20th Century, Lonzo was listed at No. 2. On its list of the Top 25 high school basketball players in the country in the 21st Century, Lonzo was No. 6.
The first was the most important because it established a Ball template.
When LaMelo Ball scored 27 points in his summer high school debut as a 13-year-old, the momentum of forming a once-in-the-lifetime team with three brothers leading the way seemed unstoppable.
With younger brothers LaMelo and LiAngelo, as well as future USC star Onyeka Okongwu, Lonzo Ball pushed Chino Hills to an average of 98.4 points a game, going over the 100-point mark 18 times. The team was ranked No. 1 in the country. The brothers could play that one season together because LaVar pushed LiAngelo up a year to get into high school earlier.
“Their legacy was putting Chino Hills on the map during a five-month basketball run that entertained fans at a level no school has reached since,” the Los Angeles Times’ Eric Sondheimer wrote in 2025, 10 years later.
In one freshman season at UCLA, Lonzo led the nation with 7.6 assists a game, shot 72 percent from the field, averaged 14.6 points a game and was a consensus All-American. The Bruins started 13-0 and finished 31-5 when they dumped out of the Sweet 16.
The plan also seemed for all three brothers to go to UCLA. In August 2015, when he was just 13 years old, LaMelo verbally committed to UCLA, where Lonzo had played and LiAngel was attending. By 2017, both were playing for the L.A. Ballers of the newly launched Junior Basketball Association, an “alternative path” to the NBA for players bypassing college. LaVar Ball was the creator/commissioner/promoter. At this point, LaVar also had his Big Ball Brand launched, a controversial shoe company that also had other strange items for sale.
LaVar’s shtick was too irresistible for “Saturday Night Live” to parody.
The hometown Lakers had the No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 draft. Who else would they take except Lonzo Ball, to fulfill LaVar’s prophecy? Lonzo signed a multi-year contract with the Lakers and Magic Johnson Himself proclaimed the kid would break all his franchise records. Before his 20th birthday in August, Lonzo was the NBA Summer League MVP in Las Vegas. He was the youngest in NBA history to post a triple-double when the season started.
He cut off his locks so he didn’t look like Sideshow Bob, left it to others to talk up his potential, and was listening to LeBron James’ take about some possible L.A. relocation plans. ESPN used him in commercials promoting their telecasts as “the Lakers’ new face of ‘Showtime’.”
Flash forward to two seasons later, when the Lakers failed to make the playoffs two seasons in a row. LeBron James was now the de facto GM, and Lonzo was part of a complicated three-team trade involving 13 players and draft picks that ultimately brought Anthony Davis from New Orleans to the Lakers.
When releasing his latest album in 2024, Dhani Harrison, the 46-year-old son of the late Beatles guitar player George Harrison, said he believed society’s most valuable form of currency these days was attention. His album, Innerstanding, was about how to “clean the mirror of your consciousness.”
The Ball Family matters still matter to some, pleading for constant attention. As long as a Ball was bouncing around in the NBA, there would be social media to produce.
The update as of the summer of ’26:
== LaVar and Tina split up. LaVar revealed the news during an appearance with streamer N3on on his YouTube channel. He admitted: “I had that with her. And I found somebody else, but it is what it is.” LaVar disputed the split was a result of their health issues –Tina, a middle school athletic director, suffered a stroke in 2017, but remained a central figure in the family’s story. LaVar had had an amputation of his right leg after complications from diabetes in 2025.
== Lonzo’s NBA run — two seasons in New Orleans after his time with the Lakers, then a pivotal season in Chicago — would start to spiral as he missed all of 2022-23 and 2023-24 with a left knee injury. He tried a meniscus and cartilage transplant after two prior surgeries failed. Lonzo came back to Chicago to start 2024-25, played another 35 games, and, at age 28, found himself in Cleveland, playing another 35 games and averaging only 4.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 3.9 assists. He was traded to Utah with some draft picks for cash at the trade deadline, then waived by the Jazz the next day. He starts the 2026-27 season without a team. Lonzo knows that, during seven NBA seasons, he had eight career triple-doubles and single-game highs of 33 points, 16 rebounds and 17 assists.
He also bought his parents an eight-bedroom, nine-bathroom, 13,800-square-foot mansion on three acres in Chino Hills for $5.2 million. It includes a guest house, pool, and home theatre. In July 2018, Lonzo and girlfriend Denise Garcia had a daughter named Zoey. That was all made part of the family reality show storyline.
== LiAngelo Ball (aka “Gelo” on IG), born in 1998, saw his UCLA career derail because of a shoplifting charge when the team was in China, leading to an international intervention in 2016. LaVar Ball pulled his son out of UCLA after the school suspended him and then got into a public spat with President Donald Trump because he refused to credit Trump for negotiationing the release of LiAngelo from Chinese authorizes.
His NBA pathway ended up this way:
December 2, 2020: Signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Detroit Pistons.
December 14, 2020: Waived by the Detroit Pistons.
October 14, 2021: Signed a contract with the Charlotte Hornets.
October 15, 2021: Waived by the Charlotte Hornets.
September 26, 2022: Signed a contract with the Charlotte Hornets.
October 15, 2022: Waived by the Charlotte Hornets.
Somewhere in there, he averaged 4.4 points, 1.1 rebounds and 13.1 minutes in 31 NBA G League games for the Greensboro Swarm from 2021-23.
In January of 2025, LiAngelo reportedly signed a deal with Def Jam and Universal Music Group, a representative from his label Born2Ball Music Group said, what was worth as much as $13 million, with $8 million guaranteed. It gave LiAngelo full ownership of music and his own record label. Ball’s debut song was called “Tweaker.” It was noted in the ESPN story about this contract that Lonzo already had a few rap songs release, including “Zo2,” used to promote his Big Baller Brand signature shoe.
Going back to the 2017 GQ story, LiAngelo’s fate seemed to have already been sealed by his father’s prediction that he was the son who wouldn’t make it to the NBA.
“I told my boys that one of them wasn’t going to make it,” he said. “Because if you’ve got three, only one, maybe two make it to the NBA. (LiAngelo will) be taken care of either way.”
In July 2023, LiAngelo with girldfiend Nikki Mudarris had his first child, a son named LaVelo.
== LaMelo Ball, who once had a 92-point game at Chino High at age 15, was deemed ineligible for an NCAA scholarship after releasing a shoe with his family’s BBB brand and hiring an agent. Two things that in 2026 wouldn’t matter. He also retracted his verbal commitment to UCLA in December 2017.
Days later, LiAngelo and LaMelo signed to play professionally in Lithuania. A whole other nutty sidetrip.
When LaMelo was selected No. 3 overall by Charlotte in the 2020 NBA Draft, he and Lonzo became the first brothers ever to both be drafted in the top 3. LaMelo also wore No. 2 with the Hornets and was the NBA’s 2020-21 Rookie of the Year, followed by an All-Star appearance in 2021-22 where he scored 18 points. After six seasons, averaging 20.8 points, 7.3 assists, 5.7 rebounds and shooting 36 percent from 3-point range, LeMelo, whose top single-game performances are 50 points, 17 rebounds and 15 assists with 11 triple-doubles, was part of a complicated four-team, 21-player-and-draft-pick deal and found him end up in Minnesota. This was days after he signed a contract extension with Charlotte, where he made $35 million and $37 million his previous two seasons and is slotted to make $40 million, $43 million and $46 million over the next three season.
Also in May of 2026, LeMelo and his girlfriend/model Analicia Chaves (better known as Ana Montana) told People magazine they had a child back in January.
Their son is named LaOne.
This story is likely not LaOne and done. Stay tuned on your favorite form of volume-controlled communication device.
Who else wore No. 2 in SoCal sports history?
Make a case for:
Tommy Lasorda: Los Angeles Dodgers manager (1976 to 1996):
What’s your opinion of Tommy Lasorda? Curses. We have quite a few to share.
One day, after an event in downtown L.A., Lasorda grabbed me by the left forearm. There was urgency.
“We’re going to Paul’s Kitchen,” he said, referring to the historic Chinese restaurant nearby. He leaned in: “You gotta go with us.”’
He was out the door within seconds of the Sports Museum of L.A., after a 2010 press conference that had to do with Kirk Gibson’s 1988 Game 1 bat and uniform going up for auction.
My reschedule, a few years later, was a rather spectacular three-hour lunch-turned-dinner at the Dodger Stadium dining room one night prior to a game. The nudge to do this may have been a bit less obvious to him. Our newspaper editors thought we should gather fresh material on him to start compiling a biography/obit on him — in the event that he might soon leave us for the Big Dodger in the Sky.
Before a game in 2013, between slurps of split pea soup, a side of cottage cheese, a scoop of tuna and a bowl of fresh peaches – Lasorda was watching his diet at age 85 – we chewed the fat on all sorts of subjects. It would be another eight years before all this material was even needed — Lasorda died in January of 2021 at age 93 at the height of COVID.
So it was Angelus News, the Catholic news organization of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, asking if I could compile “the Catholic life of Tommy Lasorda” profile based on my interactions with him as well as my research.
We could tell the story of the man who skippered the Dodgers’ last four games of the 1976 season and lasted through 76 games of the 1996 season, covering two World Series titles, four NL pennants, eight NL West titles, 48 ejections and one win short of 1,600 in the regular season. He had, by then, already admitted his life has been full of blessings, mixed in with plenty of foul words. That was just his rough-and-tough DNA, blaming it on his Pennsylvania-Italian heritage.
Artfully enunciated, dodging all sorts of backlash.
The model Catholic? There are saints in the church’s hierarchy who have done plenty worse things and repented. It’s all up for interpretation.
If we might frame Vin Scully was an Irish Catholic who openly practiced his faith, Lasorda would be far more a cultural Italian Catholic who leaned into his religion’s traditions and history when necessary to make a point. Church attendance was a Sunday requirement. So was blowing out someone else’s candle.
We noted that Lasorda had an oversized, gold-framed portrait of Mother Teresa on the wall of his cluttered Dodger Stadium office, the latest one given to him as a special consultant to the team’s current ownership. Mother Teresa was near a portrait of Roger Mahony, the archdiocese’s Emeritus Cardinal, and one of plenty of controversy in his own time.
There was also a picture of an unassuming nun wearing a white habit.
“That’s Sister Immaculata, my seventh-grade teacher,” Lasorda explained in “I Live For This! Baseball’s Last True Believer,” a 2007 biography. “She was the only one who believed in me.”
Los Angeles was a Lasorda Believer almost from the first time it met him.
This walking contradiction, a complete unruly force of nature, comedian and philosopher, harnessed his will to earn the Dodgers winning improbable championships in 1981 and 1988. The talent they had was always decent, but hardly the best on the field at that time. If there was SABR data back then, it couldn’t measure Lasorda’s contributions in the human element department.
As a few of the most highly-talented, well-built Dodgers from the 2022 and ’23 seasons wilted in the first round of the National League playoffs, one couldn’t help but wonder: What Would Lasorda Have Done?
Just follow the timeline. In no particular order, a dozen more Lasorda-related stories that never go out of style and are often committed to video. Such as:
== The Kingman rant and the Bevacqua rants:
After the Dodgers absorbed a 10-7 loss to the Chicago Cubs on May 14, 1978 where Dave Kingman hit three home runs, Lasorda was asked by radio correspondent Paul Olden: “What is your opinion of Kingman’s performance?”
Four years later, on June 30, 1982, Dodgers reliever Tom Niedenfuer hit San Diego Padres batter Joe Lefebvre in the head with an 0-2 pitch after surrendering a home run. Padres player Kurt Bevacqua regarded it as intentional and charged the field. A reporter asked Lasorda about Bevacqua’s accusation.
== The 1988 World Series: Lasorda finds a way to use NBC’s Bob Costas to inspire the underdog Dodgers, also known as “one of the weakest ever (teams) to take the field for a World Series,” captured in the MLB Network documentary “Only In Hollywood” (which we documented ourselves).
== The 1988 World Series L.A. City Hall celebration: Let’s Dance. (And let’s follow it up with something else years later)
== The on-field protest that led to the Dodgers having to forfeit a game after Dodger Stadium fans threw balls onto the field — did Lasorda instigate the crowd?
== The Rau rant: From the 1977 World Series.
== The Reggie rant: From the 1978 World Series, when there was no call of interference, Lasorda argues with the umpires.
== An episode of ABC’s “Fantasy Island.” The first season. Actor Gary Burghoff plays Richard Delao of Chicago, an accountant who dreams of major-league stardom. Wearing a Dodgers’ No. 37 jersey, the fantasy doesn’t become real until Tommy Lasorda makes it happen (“Smiles, everyone!”) This is likely where the term “Fantasy Camp” became an idea.
== The 2001 MLB All-Star Game tumble: Lasorda is coaching third base for the National League and nearly doesn’t live to tell about it (maybe this led to them wearing helmets?)
== Lasorda claims he discovered a great young broadcaster named Al Michaels as he was managing the Dodgers’ Triple-A team during a series in Hawaii in 1968.
== The time when Lasorda went bare-chested and swam laps in the LA Police Academy pool to amuse David Letterman on “Late Night.”
== The Hall of Fame speech, which includes the story of how Lasorda claims he snuffed out Cincinnati Reds manager John McNamara’s candle in the church.
When Lasorda’s number comes up in Dodgers’ lore, there are several to pick from.
As a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954, he had No. 29. He switched to No. 27 later that season, as well as through four games in ’55.
Somehow, there are photos of him wearing No. 21. And No. 64 in a shot with Duke Snider.
With the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League in 1957, coming to Southern California a year before the Dodgers, he wore … we are still checking.
Maybe he had it torn off him during a game where he instigated one of the most famous L.A. baseball brawls in history.
(There’s another great story to research: The time in 1948 with the Phillies’ Schenectady Blue Jays of the Canadian-American League when he struck out 25 batters pitching all 15-innings, then drove in the winning run)
As a manager in the Dodgers farm system with Triple A Spokane (1969 to ’71) and Albuquerque (1972), he wore No. 11.
In four seasons as the third-base coach for Walter Alston, Lasorda from 1973 to ’76, wore No. 52.
He changed to No. 2 for the 1977, his first full year as the Dodgers manager. (He was named to the position in September of ’76, but No. 2 was still being worn by backup catcher Ellie Rodriguez).
After Lasorda took No. 2, he kept that for the next 19 seasons, seeing it retired for him by the Dodgers. Not anyone else. Even though Lasorda said he took the number a way to honor Leo Durocher, who wore it as a Brooklyn Dodgers shortstop for six seasons spread out between 1938 to 1945, some of which overlapped with his time as a player/manager from 1939 (picked over Babe Ruth) to ’46 (skipping the ’47 season of Jackie Robinson because of a suspension) and coming back in ’48.
Durocher was also a coach for Walter Alston’s Los Angeles Dodgers from 1961 to ’64 — often playing himself in various TV shows. It led to a Hall of Fame induction in 1994 based on winning more than 2,000 games over 24 years with his “combative, swashbuckling style,” according to the words on his Cooperstown plaque.
(When Ken Gurnick put together a list of the Best Dodgers Players by Uniform Number, he gave Durocher the number 2 based on the fact he was a two-time All-Star NL shortstop wearing at the end of his playing career — which began with the 1929 New York Yankees).
There is also the fact that a players who was one of the closest to Lasorda, shortstop Bobby Valentine, wore it for the Dodgers from 1969 to ’72, having come up to the team at age 19 while still at USC.
Yet No. 2 is all Lasorda legacy.
In Joe Posnanski’s project, “The 50 Most Famous Baseball Players of The Last 50 Years,” the author admits to going off script and picking a manager, Lasorda, as No. 48 on his list. His justification is that under Lasorda’s watch, there were nine NL Rookie of the Year Award winners on his teams during his 21 seasons.
How could that be?
“Was there some sort of magic that Tommy Lasorda created as manager of the Dodgers, something that inspired young and raw players to step in and start playing at a high level? Lasorda never seemed to me an especially dynamic strategic manager. On the field, he was a pretty bland, old-school, set-lineup guy, stay-with-the-starter guy, bunt-’em-over guy. argue-with-the-umpire guy.
“What Lasorda did as well as anyone—hell, probably better than anyone—was create this mystique about his team. Lasorda’s Dodgers were different than any other team because he said so. Lasorda’s Dodgers were more of a family because he said so. Lasorda’s Dodgers were glamorous because he said so—and he kept bringing around Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles to emphasize the point.
“It does feel like baseball teams used to have outsized personalities in a way that’s missing today. I suppose that comes down to managers having outsized personalities in those days. Lasorda probably took that to the greatest degree. He was a showman as much as a manager. He was all hearts and hugs and rah-rahs and rage and expletives.
“In his last game as manager (in 1996), the Dodgers trailed Houston 4-1 going into the bottom of the ninth. They faced Billy Wagner, and Mike Blowers hit a home run. Then, after a single and a typically ordered Lasorda bunt, Greg Gagne singled in the tying run. In the ninth, Mike Piazza —Lasorda’s hand-picked superstar — hit a long, walk-off home run.
“Lasorda never wanted the ride to end. But if it had to end, that was the right way for it to end.”
There are several ways to toast Lasorda into perpetuity.
At the neighborhood Costco, one might come across the Lasorda Family Wines #2 Tuscan Red Blend from Paso Robles.
Lasorda Family Wines has been around awhile, and Lasorda himself used to make public appearances promoting it. The project was spearheaded by his nephew, David, who found a wine maker in Paso Robles to produce a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay that seem to pair nicely with a lot of things, selling in the $25 range.
Lasorda apparently was introduced to wine making by his father, Sabatino, an immigrant from the small town of Tollo in the Abruzzo wine region. Tommy would “often help his father procure and press grapes before distributing the finished wine to family, friends, and neighbors,” it says on the website. “We embody Tommy’s fearless spirit and passion in our wine making, and in doing so, seek to honor and preserve his legacy as baseball’s true ambassador.”
The wine goes fine with anything on the menu at the pizza/sandwich/chili dog place called LaSorted’s, named in his honor by owner Tommy Brockert. The photo in the window gives it away.
There’s one on Sunset Blvd. and Silver Lake Blvd. about two miles north of Dodger Stadium. The other is on Broadway in Chinatown, a few blocks from one of Lasorda’s other favorite food hangouts, Little Joe’s, which closed in 1998.
Lasorda declared for many years he wanted his tombstone to read under his name: “Dodger Stadium was his address, but every ballpark was his home.” Team owner Peter O’Malley actually had someone create a piece of granite with that phrase withdroplets of painted Dodger blue blood, dripping. He gave it to Lasorda as a gag gift. Lasorda’s wish was to also have the Dodgers’ current schedule available on the stone for people to come by and see where the team was playing.
Instead, he rests at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, next to his son.
One of Lasorda’s favorite quips went this way:
““If someone came up to me and said he’s with the Padres, I would say: ‘When did you become a priest?’ If someone said he was with the Indians, I’d ask what reservation he came from. If he said he was a Twin, I’d ask, ‘Where’s your brother?’ If he said he was a Cardinal, I’d say, ‘Work hard, the next step up is to be Pope.’
“But if someone comes up to you and says he’s a Dodger, you know he’s in major league baseball.”
Just like you know you can’t spell Lasorda, or lasagna, without the first two letters L and A:
Reference books on the subject:
“The Artful Dodger,” by Tommy Lasorda with David Fisher, 1985
“I Live For This! Baseball’s Last True Believer,” by Bill Plaschke and Tommy Lasorda, 2007
“Tommy Lasorda: My Way,” by Colin Gunderson, 2015
“Miracle on Grass: How Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda led Team USA to a shocking upset over Cuba, capturing the only Olympic gold medal in USA baseball history,” by David Fanucchi, 2012
“Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy Lasorda and the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History,” by Eric Vickery, 2025
Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Clippers forward: (2019-20 to 2025-26):
Best known: The 6-foot-7, 225-pounder born in Los Angeles and out of Martin Luther King High in Riverside came to the Clippers with a reputation as one of the league’s most influential offensive and defensive players after winning an NBA titles in San Antonio and Toronto. After his seven seasons in L.A. included four All-Star appearances, but also missing one entire season with an injury, he was called by Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke in July of 2026 as someone who “abused an organization, alienated a fan base and basically collected $300 million of Steve Ballmer’s money and burned it … he has been injured, apathetic, entitled, disconnected and generally nothing but a pain in the backside … (he) was the worst free-agent signing in Los Angeles sports history.” As a senior in high school where he averaged 22.6 points and 13.1 rebounds a game as a senior, he found a pathway through San Diego State (where his No. 15 is retired) to become the 15th overall pick by Indiana. A three-year, $103 million contract as a free agent with the Clippers in 2019 brought him back to Southern California, and seemed to make an immediate impact when he scored 35 points with 12 rebounds in the Clippers’ 111-106 win over the Lakers on Christmas Day. He extended his Clippers deal in January of 2024 with a three-year, $153 million contract — and posted a triple double (25 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists) in an 11-point win over the Lakers two weeks later. Leonard, represented by his uncle Dennis Roberton, was coddled by the Clippers as they used the term “load management” to keep him from overextending himself. “The Clippers basically have spent Leonard’s entire tenure being scared of him, hoping that their subservience would make him comfortable enough to lead them to a championship,” Plascke continued. “The joke has been on them.” Only twice in his time did he play as many as 65 games. The team got past the first round of the playoffs in that time twice, but Leonard injured himself in the second round in 2021. The Clippers made it to the Western Conference final for the firfst time but he sat out with a leg injury. The Clippers were sued twice over their initial attempt to sign him, and the NBA has fined the team for trying to protect him during an investigation into how Leonard was given a $28 million endorsement deal by a failed banking company called Aspiration.
Not well known: His first name was something his father invented. He wanted something that sounded Hawaiian, like Kauai, one of the Hawaiian islands.
Derek Fisher, Los Angeles Lakers guard (1996-97 to 2003-04; 2007-08 to 2011-12):
Best known: The number he’s best linked to is 0.4, for his ability to catch, turn and shoot a buzzer beater to win Game 5 of the 2004 Western Conference semifinals against defending champion San Antonio (final score: 74-73). He played in more than 1,000 games for the Lakers (915 regular season, 193 post season) and was part of five title teams. He ended up as the head coach of the WNBA Los Angeles Sparks from 2019 to 2022, and then at Crespi High in Encino in 2023.
Adam Kennedy, Anaheim Angels/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim second baseman (2000 to 2006):
Best known: The former North High of Riverside and Cal State Northridge star will be remember for his three-homer game in the decisive Game 5 of the 2002 ALCS against Minnesota, making him the series MVP. He ended up hitting seven homers that post-season after just four total in the regular season. Also wore No. 3 in his final pro season (2012 with the Dodgers).
Cobi Jones, UCLA soccer (1988 to 1991):
A 2002 UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, Jones was a walk-on out of Westlake High and earned a scholarship as he moved into the starting line-up midway through his freshman year and started all four seasons. Team offensive MVP in ’89 and ’91, he helped the team to a 1990 NCAA Championship, was twice named first-team All-Far West (1990, 1991) and as a senior set a record with 18 assists. He finished UCLA with 23 goals and 37 assists.
Robert Woods, Serra High of Gardena receiver (2007 to 2009), USC football receiver (2010 to 2012), Los Angeles Rams receiver (2018 to 2021):
Best known: After wearing No. 2 as a star at Serra High in Gardena and at USC, Woods was finally able to go with No. 2 while with the Rams when the NFL changed its rules in 2021 about allowing single-digits jerseys for receivers. “Just being number 2 my whole life, always was the deuce – ‘the deuce is loose’,” said Woods at the time. “Got to jump on that opportunity to wear the 2 in the hometown. It’s a must.”
Woods, who also wore No. 13 at USC in 2010, initially wore No. 17 for the Rams from 2018 to 2020 when he came back to Southern California.
In high school, Woods was the 2008 Daily Breeze Football Player of the Year when he had 1,378 receiving yards on 81 receptions during a junior season that ended in a CIF Southern Section title game loss to Oaks Christian. Woods added seven interceptions as a defensive back and had six touchdown returns on kicks and punts. As a senior in 2009, Woods caught 66 passes for 1,112 yards, had five carries for 70 yards, and had 96 total tackles along with eight interceptions and a forced fumble on as his team won the CIF Northwestern Division Championship over Oaks Christian and the CIF Division III state title to finish 15-0. Woods also added three individual CIF-SS titles – in the 200 (21.43), the 400 (47.31) and in the 400 relay (41.21) to help Serra claim the Division IV team title.
In three years at USC, Woods caught what remains a school-record 252 passes over 38 games for 2,930 yards (seventh-best all time) and 32 touchdowns (second-best all time). He also ran 14 times for 142 yards.
With the Rams, Woods signed a five-year, $34 million contract in 2017 and finished his first with 56 receptions for a career-high 781 yards and five touchdowns in 12 games. The next year: 86 receptions for 1,219 yards and six touchdowns in 16 games, plus five receptions for 70 yards in a Super Bowl loss to New England. In 2019: 90 receptions for 1,134 yards and two touchdowns. Signing a four-year, $65 million contract extension with the Rams in 2020, Woods finished the season with 90 receptions for 936 yards and six touchdowns to go along with 24 carries for 155 yards and two touchdowns. As the Rams went to the Super Bowl LVI against Cincinnati, Woods tore an ACL in practice in November of 2021 to end the season after 45 catches for 556 yards and five TDs in nine games. After playing in Tennessee, Houston and Pittsburgh, Woods signed a one-day contract to retire with the Rams on February 17, 2026 and become a receivers coach.
Have you heard this story:
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Los Angeles Clippers guard (2018-19):
Best known: Kawhi Leonard could take No. 2upon his arrival in L.A. because Gilgeous-Alexander, the Clippers’ All-NBA Rookie guard during his one and only season, was shipped to OKC in a deal for Paul George, who was to be Kawhi Leonard’s second half of a dynamic duo. The quick fix only paid off for the Thunder. Shaivonte Aician Gilgeous-Alexander, aka SGA, has been an NBA regular-season MVP and scoring champion (’24-’25), two-time All-NBA and three-time All Star, plus a star player for Team Canada in the 2024 Summer Olympics. The Clippers traded for him on 2018 Draft Day. Yet by July 2019, they sent him with Danilio Gallinari and five first-round draft picks, and the rights to swap two other first-round picks, to get George, a player who hung around for five seasons and made about $200 million before leaving Leonard and taking a free-agent trip to On December 22, 2019, OKC’s Gilgeous-Alexander scored a then career-high 32 points with five assists, three rebounds, and two steals in a 118–112 win over the Clippers. On December 18, 2021, Gilgeous-Alexander scored 18 points and made a game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer to lift the Thunder over the Clippers, 104–103. On November 11, 2024, Gilgeous-Alexander scored a then-career-high 45 points with nine assists, five steals and two blocks in a 134–128 win over the Clippers.
Jessica Mendoza, Camarillo High softball shortstop (1994 to 1998):
The U.S. women’s national softball star from 2004 to 2010, after being named first-team All-American in her sport at Stanford and being part of two Olympic medal-winning teams first drew attention at Camarillo High. The Los Angeles Times Player of the Year in 1998 was her school’s Female Athlete of the Year as a junior and senior, as she was also the team MVP of the girls’ basketball team as a junior and senior as well. As Mendoza got into broadcasting, she was hired as the first female commentator for a MLB game by ESPN, and soon after was doing the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game from Dodger Stadium for a game where Chicago’s Jake Arrieta threw a no-hitter against the Dodgers. When Mendoza was on ESPN’s 2015 AL Wild Card game, she was the first female commentator in MLB postseason TV history.
Morley Drury, USC football halfback/quarterback/safety (1925 to 1927):
Why was he called “The Noblest Trojans of Them All”? Mark Kelly, a former sports editor of the Los Angeles Examiner, wrote it about him, paraphrasing a line from Shakespeare that referred to Julius Caesar as the “noblest Roman.” Coach Howard Jones, who arrived at USC at the same time as Drury and included him in his Thundering Herd offense where the tailback was in a single wing formation, called him “the greatest player I ever coached,” as Drury also played basketball, water polo and ice hockey for the school.
A Long Beach Poly grad at age 21, he worked two years in the shipyard docks as a roughneck on Signal Hill after finishing grammar school and entering high school. He led Poly to a CIF football title in 1924 and then its basketball team to a state title). As USC was 27-5-1 in his career, Drury became the Trojans’ senior captain and first All-American player. His 1,163 yards rushing in ’27 stood as a school record until Mike Garrett broke it (1,440) during his 1965 Heisman Trophy season of 1965. Drury also had a 45-carry game in ’27 (part of his 223 carries), a mark that wasn’t passed until O.J. Simpson had 47 in 1968. Drury’s legend also includes his a 180-yard, three touchdown game against Washington in his final game that, as he left the field, apparently prompted a 10-minute standing ovation by 70,000 at the Coliseum (also prompted by the public address announcer who said “Morley is coming off the field the last time, folks, give him the hand that he deserves.”) Drury later said he had just scored and Jones told him that instead of going to the dressing room he should walk across the field. “I reached the track (circling the field) and looked up at all those people … my knees got so weak even if I did feel fresh as a horse, and I bawled like a baby. The opposing team stood up. The ovation lasted until I reached the tunnel.” Elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954, he was in the first USC Athletic Hall of Fame class of 1995.
Darryl Henley, UCLA football defensive back (1985 to 1988): The Damien High of La Verne star became a consensus All-American. His complete bio is in the No. 20 post, the number he wore for the Rams.
Gianna Bryant, Mamba Academy: The Lakers could still retire No. 2 — if only to honor Kobe Bryant’s daughter, who died in the 2020 helicopter crash with him and wore that number. When the Lakers honored the Bryants in the first game after the tragedy, Gianna’s No. 2 was draped over the seat in which she last sat at Staples Center next to her dad’s No. 24.
We also have:
Darren Collison, UCLA men’s basketball (2005-06 to 2008-09)
Taylor Mays, USC football defensive back (2006 to 2009)
Andrelton Simmons, Los Angeles Angels shortstop (2016 to 2020)
Freddie Patek, California Angels second baseman (1980 to 1981)
Alexei Zhitnik, Los Angeles Kings defenseman (1992-93 to 1994-95)
Matt Green, Los Angeles Kings defenseman (2009-09 to2-2016- 17)
Terry Harper, Los Angeles Kings center (1972-73 to 1974-’75)
Zoilo Versalles, Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop (1968)
Don Demeter, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder (1959 to 1960) Also wore No. 27 in 1958 and No. 7 in 1961
Sandy Alomar, California Angels infielder (1971 to 1972) Also wore No. 4 from 1969 to ’71 and No. 24 from 1973 to ’74
Bobby Dollas, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim defenseman (1993-94 to 1997-98)
Cam Fowler, Anaheim Ducks defenseman (2011-12 to 2023-24) Also wore No. 54 in 2010-11.
John McNamara, California Angels manager (1983 to ’84, 1996)
Cookie Rojas, California Angels manager (1998)
Anyone else worth nominating?
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 