Tommy

If you've ever wondered whether it is possible for a fast-track Wall Street player to have a heart, "The Good Guy" makes a run at answering that question, spending some quality time at the intersection of stock traders and romantic bonds. The result is a more-clever-than-most window into modern urban yuppie mating rituals, tracking just how tough it is to keep a grip on love and the corporate ladder at the same time. The film stars Alexis Bledel as Beth, the good girl stranded on that dangerous corner.

I have just seen the Dodgers lose another game and Tommy bled. Just before this, I saw our esteemed leader promoting the sale of Honda power equipment. Tommy may bleed Dodger Blue, but he doesn't seem worried about Japanese products bleeding the American workers who lose jobs to imports. It would be real All-American if athletes and their agents considered other aspects besides remuneration when sponsoring products. BILL PLUTTE Ojai

As 19-year-old Peter Wilson put it, Tommy's Original World Famous Hamburgers in Eagle Rock is "a total hangout place." That is especially true on weekend nights, when 300 to 500 teen-agers and young adults congregate around the hamburger stand on Colorado Boulevard, throng nearby parking lots and, with car stereos blaring, park bumper to bumper along residential streets, according to the police and Tommy's management.

DEAF? Jeffrey Fayman and Allyson Shelly were both unsettled by my disillusions about rock (Letters, July 19). I hear you guys, but I am misunderstood. I still believe good rock can raise people up emotionally, but in the '60s I thought rock could end war and famine and make all men equal. Today I get as much from a day sailing as from an hour listening to Guns N' Roses, and together they make special magic. I simply listen more keenly to the wind of Aeolus than the wind of Axl. DUMB?

Being a Dodger fan living in San Diego, I keep hearing how the Dodgers will fade. Well, Tommy, if you pull this one off you deserve to be manager of the decade. Good luck! JOHN RICHARDSON Carlsbad

Can you picture Tom Lasorda as a National Basketball Assn. referee? Earl Strom says it could have happened. "I've known Tommy for a long time," Strom told Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe. "He's from Norristown, Pa., and I'm from Pottstown. Years ago, when Tommy was through pitching and was just a scout, he decided he wanted to be an NBA referee. I recommended him to Sid Borgia.

Vice President of the Dodgers? Why not commissioner of baseball? Dodger President Peter O'Malley said he almost raised the concept during the news conference Monday at which Lasorda announced his retirement as Dodger manager but didn't want to sound glib and didn't think it was the right time or place. "If a higher calling comes along, I wouldn't stand in Tommy's way," O'Malley said after the news conference.

Manager Tom Lasorda, out of his hospital bed and walking Saturday, is scheduled to be released from Centinela Hospital Medical Center today. It's the best he has felt since being admitted a week ago when he underwent an angioplasty to clear a clogged artery, said Jo Lasorda, his wife. He still hopes to return to his job July 4 against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium but is awaiting clearance, as well as advice, from his doctors.