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Author Bob Bennett reports on Johnny's funeral services on January 17, 2008 in Port Henry, New York: Tommy Lasorda has said that he doesn't attend funerals unless its family or someone "in the Dodger organization." His story is that funerals remind him of his own mortality, which depresses him, and that "Nobody needs me when they are dead."   So it was no surprise that he appeared in Port Henry. New York, to deliver the eulogy for Johnny Podres. He related the oft-told tale of how he and Johnny and Zimmer, who was also in attendance Thursday, went to Coney Island in Brooklyn one opening day to throw baseballs at a carnival exhibit and won a pile of stuffed animals that the three of them later sold. Then he said that Johnny, recently depressed by his kidney and heart problems, was not going to suffer any more. In attendance also was Curt Schilling, who has always credited Podres with helping become the fine pitcher he is, and even providing more inspiration to him than anyone except "the Lord and my parents."   Most of the many hundreds of people who packed St. Patrick's Church on the shore of Lake Champlain were elderly residents of Port Henry, Moriah, Mineville and Witherbee, Podres' old stomping grounds growing up. These were the folks who knew Johnny "when," or his family, and were so proud of his accomplishments in the big leagues. These were the people who shared a drink at the local tavern during off-seasons, when Podres would return to his home town of Witherbee rather than hang out in glitzy Los Angeles. Some were members of his old bowling team that barnstormed around upstate New York and across the lake in Vermont, with the prize a spaghetti dinner and beer.   They came in droves to pay their last respects to Johnny, who lay in an open casket flanked by a Brooklyn Dodger hat and a Phillies cap, next two his two sons, a brother, and the pitcher's widow, Joan. An hour  before the funeral Mass, an unending line of mourners hugged Joan and knelt before the casket to say a prayer.   "It was all so sudden, Joan told us. "I took him to the hospital on Saturday because his leg was bothering him. The next thing I knew he was sedated so they could amputate the leg because of an infection, and his heart gave out."   Then she introduced us to her sons and his brother, who thanked us "for writing the book. You did a good job and Johnny appreciated it more than he let on," they told us.