FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- He may be two decades removed from his last World Series title, but baseball is still an integral part of Tommy Lasorda's life. The former Dodgers manager is making the rounds at Spring Training parks to promote the World Baseball Classic, using his iconic status to further publicize the nascent tourney.

Lasorda, a two-time World Series champion and a two-time Manager of the Year, can recall his initial efforts three years ago to build a groundswell of support for the Classic. The job was so much harder then, he said, and the momentum gathered by the inaugural event has really begun to perpetuate itself.

"The Commissioner, in the first Classic, dubbed me the ambassador," said Lasorda, who's in his 60th year with the Dodgers franchise. "I went all over the cities before they were playing and got the people to go out. We drew more people than they ever anticipated. ... And now it's going to be played in Dodger Stadium, which I call Blue Heaven on Earth. If you want to get to heaven, you've got to go through Dodger Stadium."

Lasorda went on to describe the process of promoting the inaugural Classic, which basically consisted of doing several media junkets and spreading the word about an event that the public didn't know how to consume. And when the actual World Baseball Classic went off without a hitch, Lasorda was proud of what he'd wrought.

"After we went to the cities where they were playing, we went to watch them play," Lasorda said. "I saw Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic play in San Juan. You know that expression, 'They were hanging from the rafters?' That's exactly what they were doing. ... It was exciting. And then to see Taiwan play the Japanese, I think every Japanese fan from L.A. went to see that game. It was great. You've got the best players in the world."

And really, with the increasing international atmosphere surrounding the game, there's no reason that kind of event can't flourish. Lasorda, who managed Team USA to the gold medal in the 2000 Summer Olympics, said that few achievements have felt as good as serving his country and emerging victorious.

"That's why I took the team in the Olympics -- because I wanted to do something for my country," Lasorda said. "When the United States played Russia in ice hockey, the guy picked his players. My 24 players, 23 I had never seen and I didn't know who they were. The only one I knew was Pat Borders.

"The Russians had been beaten before, but the Cubans had never lost a tournament. ... And we beat them. We had a bunch of young guys, and our theme was, 'We didn't come 5,000 miles to lose.'"

That nationalism, that pride in country and homeland, is something Lasorda senses in the other competing countries but not necessarily the United States, where players are perhaps more concerned with their Major League season. And if the USA is going to win the tourney, he said that has to change.

"The United States won one game, and they had possibly five or six future Hall of Famers on that team," Lasorda said. "Somebody's got to convince them. Somebody's got to talk to them. Somebody's got to let them know: 'You want to walk out there and get beat? You've got to want to beat anybody that walks out on the field against you.'"

And having said that, Lasorda wouldn't let the point go. For a moment, the 81-year-old was back in his glory days, relaying a brand of motivational speech that has long since gone out of vogue in professional sports.

"You know what I told my team?" he asked. "I said, 'I don't know who you guys are. I don't know where you come from. I don't know if you're married or single, and I don't know if you're good, mediocre or bad. But I'm going to tell you something right now and don't you forget it. When this is all over, the whole world's going to know who you are, because you're going to win. You know why? Because baseball is America's game. It doesn't belong to the Italians or the Cubans or the Japanese or the Koreans. It's our game. And we're not going to let them donkeys beat us.'"