San Diego, California
“I get tired of hearing ballplayers bellyache all
the time. They should sit in the
press box sometime and watch themselves play.”
San Diego Padres
President, Buzzie Bavasi, 1973
ABOUT and
FROM BUZZIE BAVASI…
SOME QUIPS,
QUOTES, and NOTES!
Nashua had a
Dodger in the front office, of course.
His name: Emil J. Bavasi. With
our association in 1946 began a relationship that grew closer and closer over
the years. Buzzie Bavasi, as everyone
calls him, became one of my closest friends.
Both of us ended up with the Dodgers for many years, Buzzie as general manager
and in my opinion one of the finest there has ever been.
Walter Alston, A
Year at a Time, 1976
Buzzie Bavasi has
been responsible for a lot of things in my life and one of them is golf. I hadn’t played much golf when I got to
Nashua, but Buzzie loved the game and played it all the time. Nashua had a nice golf course and Lela and I
would often go out early in the morning to get in a round of play.
One day Buzzie and
I went out to the country club with a couple of players, Dick Malady and Larry
Shepard, who later managed Pittsburgh.
We were all pretty scatter-gunned but on the sixth hole Buzzie tied into
one. It was a short hole but he hit the
ball well and when we got towards the green we couldn’t find the ball.
We looked all over
where we normally would find one of our balls—in the trap, off the rough or
buried in the fringe of the trap in that hanging high grass. I finally walked by the cup and I’ll be
darned if the ball wasn’t in there lying at the bottom wedged against the pin.
Buzzie had a
hole-in-one. Now that was his first, I
guess, and he was mighty happy. In
those days in Nashua you got a set of tires or a case of Scotch or something
for an ace. So as we were walking into
the clubhouse after the round, I turned to Shep and Dick and suggested to them
that we never saw any hole-in-one.
“Sign my card,
Walter,” Buzzie asked me.
“Why?”
“For my
hole-in-one.”
“What
hole-in-one? I never saw any
hole-in-one. Did you Dick? How about you Larry? Did you see Bavasi get a hole-in-one?”
Buzzie was
raging. Here his manager and two of his
players were swearing they’d never seen a hole-in-one. Bavasi went to the telephone and called his
wife, Evit.
Pretty soon Evit
showed up in the clubhouse. We were
having lunch. She had a book in her
hand and she gave it to Buzzie. It was
the release book of standard baseball forms they give any player when he has
been released.
Needless to say,
we all signed the card and Buzzie got his prize.
Walter Alston, A
Year at a Time, 1976
A week after
succeeding Rickey as club president, O’Malley began bringing in his own
team. To take over baseball operations,
he promoted Buzzy (sic) Bavasi, a MacPhail man, to the post of general manager. Another protégé, Fresco Thompson, was given
control of the farm system. Then, to
make his point even clearer, he substituted MacPhail’s favorite coach (and
former Cincinnati pilot) Dressen for Rickey confidant Shotton.
Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella, Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball
Teams, 1993
One omen might
have been C. Arnholt Smith, a California banker and close acquaintance of
then-President Richard Nixon who had gotten into the habit of investing in
ambitious projects (like the Padres) with everybody’s money but his own. Another omen might have been the distinctly
Dodger look to much of the franchise after Los Angeles owner Walter O’Malley
had personally steered San Diego’s candidacy through meetings with other NL
executives. The most conspicuous of the
Dodger alumni was former general manager Buzzy (sic) Bavasi, who took over as
Padres president under Smith and brought along his son Peter. The Bavasi family would in turn start a San
Diego tradition of hiring field managers with connections to the Dodgers:
Preston Gomez, Don Zimmer, Roger Craig, Frank Howard, and Dick Williams.
Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella, Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball
Teams, 1993
Concluding after
his investment in the three free agents that the organization needed somebody
to control finances more scrupulously, Autry brought in as president former
Dodgers’ general manager and Padres’ chief executive Buzzie Bavasi, then in
retirement. Within a few weeks of becoming
guardian of the treasury, Bavasi had full charge of California’s baseball
operations.
Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella, Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball
Teams, 1993
In one
particularly notorious incident, on July 22, 1970, righthander Clay Kirby came
off the mound in the eighth inning only three outs shy of a no-hitter. But because Kirby was trailing in the game
1-0, manager Gomez sent Cito Gaston up to bat for him with two out in the
bottom of the inning (Gaston struck out).
While Gomez defended his decision by saying that his job was to win
games, Bavasi went berserk up in the pressroom, raging about the lost
opportunity for having a no-hit pitcher as a drawing card.
Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella, Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball
Teams, 1993
"Buzzie was
one of baseball's free spirits. He had
a catlike ability to spring over, around and under out rules. He knew where all the bodies were buried,
and more often than not, who had put them there."
Bowie Kuhn, Hardball,
1987
(in August 1956)
Rizzuto was contacted by other teams about joining them for the stretch drive,
but nothing could be worked out. He
wanted to stay in NY. Buzzie Bavasi
called, but he wanted Rizzuto to go to Montreal to stay in shape until the
Dodgers could clear a space on their roster.
Rizzuto said no.
Bill James, The
Politics of Glory, 1994
Buzzie Bavasi, who
helped spearhead the effort to bring Major League Baseball to San Diego and
served as the Padres' first president, and Jerry Coleman, the voice of the
Padres for the last 29 years, will be inducted into the Padres Hall of Fame in
a ceremony prior to tomorrow's 7:05 p.m. Padres-Expos game at Qualcomm Stadium.
The Padres Hall of
Fame, which honors players, coaches and executives who have contributed to the
organization's growth and success since San Diego broke into the major leagues
in 1969, was created in 1999 as part of the club's 30th anniversary
celebration. The inaugural class of Padres Hall of Famers included left-handed
pitcher Randy Jones, first baseman Nate Colbert and owner Ray Kroc. Outfielder
Dave Winfield was inducted last year.
Bavasi and Coleman
were elected by a 24-member committee of media, club officials and fans, who
use rules based on those necessary to be elected to the National Baseball Hall
of Fame. Eventually, the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame will be housed at San
Diego's new ballpark, scheduled to open in 2004.
Already a veteran
of nearly 30 years in the game, Bavasi joined C. Arnholt Smith's effort to
attract a National League franchise to San Diego in 1967 and, after securing a
team, served as the Padres' first president from the birth of the franchise
until 1977.
The 86-year-old,
who today makes his home in La Jolla, was one of baseball's most-respected and
best-liked executives for more than four decades. He began his career in
baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1939, serving the organization in various
capacities. Following a stint in the military as an infantry machine gunner
from 1943-46, Bavasi served as General Manager of the Dodgers' Triple-A club in
Montreal. In 1951, he was appointed Vice President and General Manager of the
Brooklyn Dodgers, a post he maintained through the club's move to Los Angeles
until he resigned to join the effort to bring the major leagues to San Diego.
From the San Diego Padres web page, 2001
“Just recently,”
mused the bustling collector, “Padre President Buzzie Bavasi and I were riding
down in the elevator together and he mentioned one of his hubcaps was missing,
as if I might know where it was. I
didn’t want to ruin my image so I answered back, ‘If I bring it in will you be
kind enough to autograph it for me?’”
Andy Strasberg, Director of Season Ticket Sales, San Diego Padres, 1975 Official Scorebook, Vol. 2, Number 6
“Nashua, NH, Was Safe Haven
Campanella and Newcombe Found an Early
Home”
By Michael Madden
NASHUA, NH -
Buzzie Bavasi was reluctant to add details to the tale that has grown and
grown, because what happened that night 51 years ago in Holman Stadium was an
exception to "what was without a doubt the most enjoyable year I ever had
in baseball." And there is nearly a half-century from which to choose.
``Oh, it was
nothing,'' Bavasi said at first, preferring to relish story after story and
laugh after laugh about the 1946 season of the Nashua Dodgers. ``They've built
it up a lot ... it wasn't that big a deal.''
``Hah!'' said Don
Newcombe. ``If it weren't for Buzzie Bavasi, I'd have had nothing in baeball.
Those guys from Lynn all game were calling us niggers, and we had promised Mr.
Rickey that we would keep our heads. We couldn't do anything, Roy and me ...
but Mr. Bavasi did.''
``The Experiment''
was a euphemism for justice. Brooklyn's Branch Rickey had ended 60 years of
baseball segregation after the 1945 season by signing five black players,
including Don Newcombe, a 19-year-old pitcher; Roy Campanella, a 24-year-old
catcher; and a speedy 26-year-old infielder named Jackie Robinson.
Newcombe and
Campanella became the first black battery in the white world of organized
baseball that summer of '46 in Nashua; while Robinson broke the color barrier
with the Dodgers' International League farm team in Montreal, Newcombe and
Campanella were the first black players in more than 60 years playing for a
team based in the United States.
``I'll always
remember Nashua with warmness,'' said Newcombe, who went on to become a Hall of
Fame pitcher with the Dodgers in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. ``Roy felt the same
way, too. I can't tell you how many times we talked years later of how much we
enjoyed playing in Nashua. But there were times with other teams ...
particularly the Lynn Red Sox.
They had this
catcher, this redneck from the South, Matt Batts,'' said Newcombe of a player
who would be called up to Boston in 1947. ``And they had this pitcher, Walter
Cress, he could pitch, but he was a bigot, too. But the worst of them all was
that manager of theirs, that Pip Kennedy. They had some real crackers on that
team, real rednecks.''
Cress died recently,
but Batts, now retired in Baton Rouge, La., denied that the Lynn Red Sox
singled out Campanella and Newcombe. ``Roy was a heck of a ballplayer,'' said
Batts, ``the best player in the league. What I remember was that Walter Cress
and I used to rub Roy's head for good luck ... Roy was a very nice fellow, so
were the two of them. ``Pip Kennedy,
our manager, was a great guy. He was a chubby Irishman and he'd get after you
to play your best baseball.''
But according to
Newcombe, the abuse from the Lynn dugout and the third-base coach's box was
nonstop that night the Sox played at Holman. ``Pip Kennedy was a no-good son of
a bitch and you can quote me on that,'' said Newcombe. ``In the minors, the
manager would be in the third-base box, and Kennedy was saying all kinds of
racial epithets at me and Roy all night, `nigger-this' and `nigger-that.'''
The legend of that
night has grown and grown. The Experiment had strict guidelines, and one was
that Newcombe and Campanella could not say or do anything to retaliate. No
head-hunting pitches from Newcombe, no words from either player, no recourse
whatsoever.
Nothing from
Newcombe or Campanella in reply. Mere silence. But, said Newcombe, ``that
didn't mean Mr. Bavasi had to take it.''
Bavasi, after
saying time and again that the incident ``was nothing,'' finally provided some
details. ``Lynn had this manager ... and he had been using the N-word the whole
game,'' said Bavasi. ``I was mad and I had them come to get their share of the
gate receipts.'' Bavasi had seen and heard enough. But would there be enough
size to back him up as he confronted the Lynn Red Sox? Fear was in his bones,
so Bavasi made sure some of his bigger players were around and that his
manager, who had been talked into leaving his beloved high school teaching
position in Ohio, was at his side. ``I made sure Walter Alston was there;
Walter was big,'' said Bavasi.
``What I remember
was the whole [Lynn] Red Sox team was there behind Kennedy, the bus was right
there with all of them. And I said to him, `Why don't you say to me right now
what you said to them and I'll kick your ass. Go ahead and say that to me.'''
Bavasi's voice raced as he repeated these words. The emotions of a night 51
years ago came back to a man of 79.
``I challenged
him,'' said Bavasi. ``I said, `I'll take you on' and I remember seeing that
bus. The whole Lynn team was right behind Kennedy. You know ... first time in
my life I had ever challenged anybody and here I was challenging an entire
baseball team.'' A pause. Bavasi spoke again, saying, ``I owe my entire
baseball career to Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe.''
And from Newcombe,
``Without Mr. Bavasi, Mr. Rickey, and Walter Alston, Roy and I would never have
gotten to where we were. I owe everything to them.'' The Class B New England
League was reborn after World War II. Teams in Nashua and Manchester, N.H.,
Lynn, Lawrence, and Fall River, Mass., Pawtucket and Providence, R.I., and
Portland, Maine, all posted $1,500 in early 1946 to establish their franchises.
The Nashua team was directly owned by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Branch Rickey
mixed the potions for his experiment carefully. He searched long and hard for
the right man to be his general manager. ``I was just back from the war, three
years of infantry, and I was down in Sea Island, Ga., with my wife for four or
five months of rest,'' recalled Bavasi. ``Then Mr. Rickey called me and asked
me to come up to Nashua. I knew something was up.''
For his manager,
Rickey talked Walter Alston into taking a temporary leave from his teaching and
coaching job in Lewiston, Ohio. Alston, who had played briefly as a first
baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, would be the player-manager for Nashua -
still playing first base - but he was unsure whether he wanted to continue in
professional baseball. He did know for sure, though, that he wanted to teach
high school boys and girls. This Nashua thing would be temporary, a favor for
Rickey.
``One of the first
things we did,'' said Bavasi of Rickey's mixing The Experiment's potions so carefully,
``was to make sure that the city of Nashua would be behind us. What we did was
hire the [managing] editor of the Nashua Telegraph, Fred Dobens, to be
president of the team. That way we knew the city's newspaper would back us.''
Newcombe and Campanella,
meanwhile, were working out together as the winter went on, ``working out in
the New York City YMCA,'' Newcombe said. Spring training with the rest of the
Dodger farmhands in either Daytona Beach, Fla., or Thomasville, Ga., was out of
the question.
``But it was such
a thrilling time,'' Newcombe remembered. Almost daily, he, Campanella, and
Jackie Robinson would talk, among themselves, or with Clyde Sukeforth, Rickey's
chief scout, or with Rickey himself. ``Jackie would call us up, and Jackie'd lay
down the guidelines for us, and that was fine with me and Roy. Jackie was more
mature and the leader ... as three black guys, we were doing something we had
to do and Jackie was telling us how we'd do it.''
The ``guidelines''
had been repeated often from Rickey and Sukeforth to the black players, then
repeated over and over among the players themselves. ``I remember Jackie saying
to me,'' Newcombe related, ``since I was a hotheaded teenager, `Especially you,
Don, since you're going to have the ball in your hand, you can't be throwing it
at somebody's head who just called you a name.'''
The historical
announcement came almost with a whisper. In mid-March, as Newcombe recalls,
Rickey ``told us they wouldn't let us down South for spring training, and they
wouldn't let us play in Danville,'' Ill., where the Dodgers had a farm club.
``He told us the Dodgers had only one farm team left to put us, and that it was
up in Nashua.''
On April 4, Rickey
announced that Roy Campanella, star Negro League catcher, and Negro League
teenage pitching prospect Don Newcombe would be playing that season in Nashua.
Newcombe and Campanella would be the first black players on an organized white
baseball team based in the United States in 62 years.
``I've thought
about this for 50 years,'' said Newcombe. ``Suppose Buzzie Bavasi was a bigot
and said, `I don't want any damn niggers on my team,' and suppose the president
of the New England League was a bigot and said the same thing, and suppose
Walter Alston was a bigot and he said, `I don't want any niggers on my team.' I
mean, the Dodgers were down to one farm team. Our whole lives would have been
different.''
Newcombe and
Campanella, their spring training completed at the New York YMCA, took a bus to
Nashua. The rest of the Nashua team took a bus up from Thomasville, Ga. The bus
broke down in Delaware, and Newcombe's first assignment in organized ball was
to take another bus to Delaware with third baseman Joe Tuminelli and drive.
This story ran on page c10 of the Boston Globe on 03/28/97.
Arrival of VP Bavasi marks beginning of the
end for Ryan and Angels”
Buzzie Bavasi
watches three games a day off his satellite dish. Out of baseball since 1984
after a half-century in it, he wants to be no closer than his screen. He
attends only high school games near his home in La Jolla, Calif., if he goes at
all.
This way, he still
can enjoy baseball. "No one ever asks me for a raise," he said,
chuckling.
Bavasi owned a
part of the San Diego Padres, one of the three teams for which he worked. The
rest of his time in the major leagues, the money only passed through him, from
people like California Angels owner Gene Autry to Nolan Ryan. The passage
rarely was smooth, particularly in the latter case. Bavasi jealously guarded
his boss' wallet. He did his job well, as he and others saw it. He remembers
now, 40 years later, what his best players made. He ticked off salaries as if
they were the ages of his four sons. The 1955 Dodgers, Brooklyn's only World
Series winner, had a payroll of $545,000, an average of $21,000.
"And $21,000
was a lot of money back then," Bavasi said. "I didn't know anybody
else making $21,000."
By the time he got
to the Angels for the 1978 season, Bavasi was aghast at the money spent on
players and the organization. He called the Angels a "country club"
under general manager Harry Dalton, who left within a month of Bavasi's arrival
as executive vice president. Intending to stay only a year, Bavasi spent seven
with California. And that extended stay may be why Nolan Ryan is not an Angel
today. Ryan said he and Bavasi "were not compatible." Bavasi made
several comments to reporters that angered Ryan in 1978 and 1979, though the
most famous came after Ryan left the club for the Houston Astros. Bavasi was
the first of several critics to describe Ryan as a .500 pitcher, a brand of
mediocrity that Bavasi still holds, though not as brazenly.
Bavasi was the
reason Ryan decided to become a free agent and sign with the Astros after the
1979 season. Until Bavasi arrived, Ryan liked California. He considered moving
his family from Alvin, where they annually returned in the off-season. Ryan
loved Autry, a generous and affable owner. He liked and respected Dalton, who
had acquired him from the Mets. He couldn't stand Bavasi. "I wouldn't have
come back," Ryan said, "as long as he was the general manager."
The relationship
soured early, during the 1978 season. Ryan went 10-13, his worst record since a
10-14 mark in 1971, his last season with the Mets. He led the league in
strikeouts for the sixth time with 260. But his earned run average was 3.71, up
almost a run from the year before. The Angels still were not giving him much
support, but it was better than ever. In his 13 losses, they scored 40 runs.
From 1972-77, the Angels averaged 1.7 runs in his losses.
Ryan, coming off a
terrific 1977 season in which opponents voted him AL Pitcher of the Year in a
poll by The Sporting News, picked it up again in 1978. He gave up no runs in
four of his first six starts, though he was only 2-1. His record got worse
quickly. He lost six of his next seven decisions. His luck was no better. He
went on the disabled list from June 14 through July 5 with a pulled left
hamstring, injured in a race. He won once in seven starts when he came back. He
went back on the disabled list Aug. 20 with a rib separation and did not return
until Sept. 6.
There were
problems other than injury, too. Lyman Bostock, an outfielder with a .318
career average signed by the Angels before the season, was shot and killed in
Gary, Ind., on Sept. 23. "His death devastated our ballclub and left us
all in shock," Ryan related in his 1988 autobiography. "What happened
to Lyman was kind of the final blow in a year that had begun with high hopes
for the Angels and ended with us finishing in second place, five games behind
Kansas City."
Based on the 1978
season, Bavasi formed a quick opinion of Ryan, the club's best player for most
of the 1970s. To Bavasi, he was no more than the Angels' fourth-winningest
pitcher in their best season. A new club attitude was apparent. The 1978 Angels
press guide boasted of Ryan's accomplishments "far beyond his
contemporaries" and his prospects of future greatness. The 1979 press
guide included, for the first time, a biography on Autry and Bavasi, credited
with bold deals that brought the club its success. The information on Ryan was
not nearly as kind as it had been just the year before.
"While
lacking a consistency which has limited his overall success," began the
first lines of his 1979 bio, "nonetheless, for one game or one pitch,
there's no pitcher who's more exciting to watch than Nolan Ryan."
Ryan had gone in
one season from one of the game's best to an inconsistent, if exciting,
sideshow. Ryan said he did not know if Bavasi had anything to do with the press
guide changes. But he could well imagine it. "Buzzie controlled and
meddled in everything over there,' Ryan said, "from the public relations
department to how they ran the clubhouse." The pervasive operating style
did not appeal to Ryan. "I think time passed him by," he said.
Bavasi's time in
baseball was marked by brash deals and tough negotiations. Don Zimmer -
involved in what Bavasi called his favorite deal, Zimmer for reliever Ron
Perranoski, who became a Dodger standout in the 1960s - said free agency ruined
baseball for Bavasi. "Buzzie had fun negotiating with players before
agents came along," said Zimmer, who told the Los Angeles Times everyone
he knew respected Bavasi's ability. "It was like he made a game of it. But
once all those agents came along, it took the fun out of the game for
him."
Ryan never had an
agent before the 1978 season. He negotiated his own three-year deal that paid him
$300,000 annually through 1979. Because of his deteriorating relationship with
Bavasi, he decided he likely would pursue the free-agent market after the
contract expired. To help him in that anticipated search, he hired Dick Moss as
his agent. Moss got along with Bavasi no better than Ryan did. A former Angels
official said Moss was the reason for the ultimate fall-out between Bavasi and
Ryan. Moss, without Ryan's consent, presented a list of figures indicating what
it would take to sign Ryan after the 1979 season. The incentives, Bavasi said,
were so numerous and attainable that, in 1980, Ryan easily would have made $1
million, a figure no one else in baseball made.
"If we gave
Nolan that kind of money," Bavasi said more than a dozen years later, using
Ryan's 10 victories in 1978 as a reference point, "what about the guy who
won 14 games?" The bottom line for Bavasi always was victories. When Ryan
signed with Houston after a 16-14 record in 1979, Bavasi said they would only
have to come up with two 8-7 pitchers. "If nothing else," he wrote in
his 1987 autobiography, Off the Record, "the mathematics bear that
out."
Bavasi couches the
criticism now in qualified praise. He said it was a mistake to let Ryan go. He
said, with Ryan, the Angels "would have won a World Series" either in
1982 or 1986, when they failed in the American League playoffs. But he also
noted that Ryan was 26- 27 in the club's first back-to-back winning seasons,
Bavasi's first two with the Angels. He called Ryan one of the game's "strongest"
pitchers, at one point mentioning Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Then he
quietly, deftly, withdrew Ryan from their company. "He was a better
pitcher after he left us, really," Bavasi said. Ryan didn't want to leave.
He and Ruth were tired of taking their oldest child, Reid, from his school in
Alvin to another in Anaheim at midterm.
"Up to
1979," Ryan said, "I anticipated finishing my career in California. I
think I would have. We were going to have to make some decision about where to
live full-time."
He thought a
moment, smiling. "Buzzie made that one for me."
The Dallas Morning News, 06/20/93
“ I could listen
to Buzzie Bavasi spin stories all day. Bavasi, the first general manager of the
Padres, will be inducted into the team's Hall of Fame this season. At a recent
press gathering, Buzzie lamented, "There's no negotiation in baseball
these days.''
One of Buzzie's
favorite negotiating stories is from his time with the Dodgers, and it concerns
Maury Wills. "Wills had stolen 104 bases the year (1962) before, so we
offered him $80,000,'' Bavasi said. "Maury asked if there was any way he
could get $5,000 more, and suggested if he made the All-Star team, I would give
him a $5,000 bonus. I thought about it for a second and said, 'That's a good
idea, Maury. But if you don't make the All-Star team, I'll take $5,000 back.'
Maury signed for $80,000.''
Yes, baseball has
changed in the last 39 years.
Steve Scholfield is senior sports columnist for the North County Times. He can be reached
at (760) 901-4090 or sports@nctimes.com
2/23/01
FALLBROOK ----
Duke Snider, simply one of the best baseball players of any era, likes to help
others. The Hall of Famer does it on his own terms. The 74-year-old Snider, a
resident of Fallbrook for the past 45 years, isn't big on blowing his own horn.
In his mind and heart, that would not be dignified.
If Snider can
quietly lend a hand, fine. The less said the better. For instance, there was a
time when he wrote a letter to the veteran's committee for the Hall of Fame at
Cooperstown, N.Y., urging them to consider Buzzie Bavasi for induction.
Bavasi was the
Dodgers' general manager during Snider's great seasons in Brooklyn.
"I always
thought Buzzie would end up president of the league or commissioner of baseball,''
Snider said Thursday. "Instead, he became part owner in San Diego. "I
don't know if I should say that because I never told Buzzie about that letter.
But he should be in the Hall of Fame.''
It was a typical
quiet act of courtesy on Snider's part.
Rickey, a devout
Methodist, who wore black suits and bow ties, would wander the grounds and
watch player's practice all day.
"He had this unbelievable presence," former Dodger general manager
Buzzie Bavasi said. "He’s the best baseball man with the greatest baseball
mind I’ve ever been around."
Ryan's tenure with
the Angels ended after the 1979 season because then-general manager Buzzie
Bavasi didn't believe he was worth $1 million a season. Eleven years later,
after Ryan pitched his sixth no-hitter, Bavasi sent him a telegram.
"Nolan," it began, "some time ago I made it public that I made a
mistake. You don't have to rub it in."
Jeff Miller, Orange
County Register, 1/5/99
(Speaking of the
new Alex Rodriguez contract and the included incentives.) "The guy makes
$25 million a year and he gets another hundred thousand for making the All Star
Team? If I was paying a guy $25 million a year, he sure as hell better make the All-Star team."
When a reporter
asks Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi how he is going to replace Koufax,
he replies, "Here is a boy who has pitched four no-hitters, won 27 games
last season with arthritis and is Jewish. Now, who can replace him?"
Malone proclaimed
himself the "new sheriff in town" before the Dodgers went to spring
training in 1999, and last winter referred to himself as "Dodger
Boy." "He's probably a good baseball man," said Buzzie Bavasi,
86, the Dodgers general manager from 1951 through 1967, "but a fish who
keeps his mouth shut doesn't get caught. I think that's probably good advice
for Kevin."
Buzzie
Regarding the Golden Rule:
“We live
by the Golden Rule. Those who have the gold make the rules.”
Buzzie Bavasi,
when Mrs. Rickey wanted to contact Branch Rickey: “The only way I know is
through God, and Mr. Rickey may not want to speak to Him.”
Buzzy (sic) Bavasi
wanted change. The Dodgers of 1959 were
ribbed by Brooklyn veterans.
Nineteen-sixty was a time to turn over personnel. A team must change constantly if it is to
win. The calf injury convinced Bavasi
that Furillo’s glories were history. He
summoned Furillo to his office at the Statler Hilton Hotel and asked, “What do
you think of Frank Howard, Carl?”
“I don’t think he
hits the curve good.”
“But he has
promise.”
“You don’t hit the
curve, you don’t belong here.”
“Coming along, but
slow.”
“That Howard’s
gonna be something,” Bavasi said.
Bavasi was bearing
a message down Byzantine ways. He was
suggesting that Frank Howard had arrived, and that Furillo, like Carl Erskine,
should make gracefully to the judgement of years. Retire. Then, perhaps,
the Dodgers would find him a job.
Roger Kahn, The
Boys of Summer, 1972
At the end of the
’56 season, when he made up his mind not to play in ’57, Robinson agreed to
sell the story of his retirement to Look magazine. It was an uncomplicated transaction. Look
was to pay Jackie $50,000 for the exclusive.
The Buzzy (sic)
Bavasi complicated the story. Robinson
had neglected to inform the Dodgers he was not coming back, and a few days
before the article was to run, Bavasi traded him to the Giants for Dick
Littlefield and $30,000.
Robinson had
wanted to tell Bavasi he was retiring, but he had not done so, hardly
anticipating that the Dodgers might trade the man who had symbolized the team
for a generation. When the Dodgers told
him they were trading him, Robinson knew he was in a tricky situation. To stall for time to figure out what to do,
he tried to persuade the Giant front office to hold the news of the trade for a
couple of days. But they would
not. A couple of days later, the Look article came out proclaiming his
retirement from baseball. The Giants
had offered him $60,000 to play in 1957.
It was a lot of money, more than he had ever gotten with the
Dodgers. There was now a lot of
pressure on him to keep playing.
Robinson was
undecided, the money certainly attractive.
But when Buzzy Bavasi cuttingly told reporters that the article was
merely a scheme by Robinson to get more money out of the Giants, Robinson'’
mind was made up. Robinson, who had
never been a money grubber, who had made far less money than many star
ballplayers, whose salary was earned every spring by the third exhibition game
from the throngs he drew in the South, could not bear being accused of greed by
Bavasi and by implication, O’Malley, the most avaricious man of them all. Jackie, a man of principle, decided to
retire as planned.
The beat writers
were furious at Robinson for not giving them the story.
Peter Golenbock, Bums,
An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1984
In the course of
the 1957 season I made my first major league deal. We were looking for a back-up relief pitcher. I learned from my friend Buzzie Bavasi that
the Dodgers were willing to sell Sal Maglie, who was nearing the end of his
outstanding career. Sal was just what
we were looking for—an experienced, gutsy competitor. Moreover, he would be new to our league and American League
hitters would not be used to his style of pitching. Unfortunately Weiss was sick but he okayed the deal and Topping
gave me the green light to spend any reasonable amount necessary. Buzzie and I met in one of his favorite
Manhattan seafood restaurants to close the deal. When the sale was announced, Buzzie made sure that both the
restaurant and I received publicity, neither of which made Weiss very
happy. Buzzie, Chub Feeney, and I
became good friends over these years.
About the same age, we had comparable jobs with the three New York
teams, and we all lived in Scarsdale within a few miles of one another.
Lee MacPhail, My
9 Innings, An Autobiography of 50 Years in Baseball, 1989
Emil J. “Buzzie” Bavasi
Career Summary
COLLEGE
1938
DePauw (Indiana) University; degree graduate and played as catcher
on baseball team
1939 Brooklyn Dodgers, business
office
1940 Americus
(Georgia) Pioneers, Class D, Georgia-Florida League; Business Manager;
played 4 games at 2B and hit .333
1941-42
Valdosta,
Class D, Georgia-Florida League; Business Manager
1943 Durham
(North Carolina), Class B, Piedmont League; Business Manager
1943-46
U.S.
Army, infantry machine gunner
1946-47
Nashua
(New Hampshire), Class B, New England League; Business
Manager
1948-50
Montreal
Royals, Class AAA, International League; General Manager
1948 Brooklyn Football
Dodgers, Scout
1951-68
Brooklyn
Dodgers/Los Angeles Dodgers, National League; General
Manager/Executive Vice President
1969-77
San
Diego Padres, National League; President
1978-84
California
Angels; American League; General Manager/Executive Vice
President
1978-99 Baseball Hall of Fame, Veterans Committee
Minor
League Executive of the Year, 1948
The Sporting News
Major League Executive of the Year, 1959
San
Diego Padres Hall of Fame, 2001
With
John Strege, Off the Record,
Contemporary Books, Inc., 1987
BUZZIE BAVASI-RELATED TRIVIA QUIZ, OCTOBER 20, 2001
(22 points possible)
Career
1.
Buzzie
Bavasi’s clubs won:
a.
6?
7? 8? 9? Pennants
b. 1?
2? 3? 4? World Series
c.
0?
1? 2? 3? Division Titles
Brooklyn Dodgers
2. In what year did Jackie Robinson become the first black player to win the
Most Valuable Player award?
3. Who preceded Walter Alston as the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers?
4. Not all of the Dodgers' home games in 1956 and 1957 were played in Brooklyn.
What other city hosted several Dodgers home games during those two years?
Los Angeles Dodgers
5. In what year did Dodger Stadium open?
6. The 1963 Dodgers hold the record for fewest players used in a World Series.
How many?
7. The Dodgers of 1965 and 1966 had the only infield in history with four
switch-hitters. Name them. (one point apiece)
San Diego Padres
8. How many games did the Padres lose in their first year in the National
League?
9. Xavier Nady was the third Padre to make his Major League debut with San
Diego without any minor league experience. Who were the other two, who joined
the Padres in 1972 and 1973, respectively? (one point apiece)
10. Who was the last member of the 1969 Padres to play in a San Diego uniform.
(hint: he was traded after the 1976 season but returned for a second stint in
1979 and 1980)
California Angels
11. The Angels lost Nolan Ryan as a free agent after the 1979 season. Which
team signed him?
12. The Padres' starting pitcher in Tony Gwynn's first Major League game was
sent to the Angels later that season. Name him.
13. Which team overcame a two games to none deficit against the Angels in the
1982 American League playoffs to advance to the World Series?
Hall of Fame Veterans Committee
14. For which pitcher did the Veterans Committee waive the requirement of
playing at least ten years in the major leagues?
15. Which player was selected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee
after receiving 74.5 percent, but not 75 percent, of the Baseball Writers
Association of America votes in his final year of eligibility?
16. Three men have managed in the Major Leagues for at least five different
decades. Connie Mack and John McGraw were enshrined in the Hall of Fame in
1937. Which manager was selected by the Veterans Committee in 1994?
ANSWERS
1. 9 pennants, 4 world series, 2 division titles
2. 1949
3. Charlie Dressen
4. Jersey City
5. 1962
6. 13
7. Wes Parker, Jim Lefebvre, Maury Wills, Junior Gilliam
8. 110
9. Dave Roberts, Dave Winfield
10. Fred Kendall
11. Houston Astros
12. John Curtis
13. Milwaukee Brewers
14. Addie Joss
15. Nellie Fox
16. Leo Durocher