SEATTLE — It had nothing to do with Mike Piazza or Roger Clemens, but someone did get hit with the shattered barrel of a bat during the All-Star game.

Tommy Lasorda falls head over heels when hit by a bat in the coaches box. | ZOOM |

Lasorda is greeted with laughter when he explains what happened to Sean Casey (left) and other NL stars. | ZOOM |

        Tommy Lasorda, usually in the center of things, got thwacked on the left hip by Vladimir Guerrero's bat barrel, tumbling back as fans gasped and then laughed when they realized he was OK.

        “I've coached third base many, many years and never been hit,” Lasorda said. “I was watching the ball. I never saw the bat.”

        Lasorda, the National League's honorary manager, was in the third-base coach's box in the sixth inning when Guerrero's bat splintered on a Mike Stanton pitch. Lasorda tumbled backward, heels over head.

        “I'm not quite as agile as I used to be,” he said. “I'll be 74 in a couple months.”

        When it was clear the Hall of Fame manager was unhurt, Barry Bonds ran out of the National League dugout and tried to put a chest protector on him.

        When Yankees coach Don Zimmer saw Lasorda get hit by the bat, the American League coach laughed, then lowered his head below the protective screen that rises from the top step of the dugout.

        Two years ago, Zimmer's ear and left jaw were cut by a Chuck Knoblauch foul ball against Texas in the AL playoffs, and Zimmer sat in the dugout the next day wearing a military helmet with the Yankees' logo.

        NL manager Bobby Valentine of the New York Mets had invited Lasorda to the All-Star game.

        “Tommy was my first manager in baseball,” Valentine said. “We never were in a major-league dugout before. This is the first opportunity, and it's been a blessed event.”

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