Fifteen minutes before first pitch, Tommy Lasorda disappeared.

It was 2009, and Lasorda had accompanied then-Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti to watch the organization’s double-A team in Chattanooga, Tenn. As the two walked the ballpark concourse, however, Lasorda suddenly slipped away.

“I’m looking for Tommy,” Colletti recalled Friday, “and I can’t find him.”

Colletti could have guessed where he went. Lasorda was in his 80s and more than a decade removed from his Hall of Fame career managing the Dodgers. But he still felt compelled to walk into a clubhouse and deliver a rousing pregame speech.