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Game of My Life: Dodgers
CHAPTER EXCERPT
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| Game of My Life: Dodgers by Mark Langill |
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This excerpt may not be reproduced without express written consent of Sports Publishing LLC. Please feel free to link to this page. We encourage anyone interested in receiving a percentage of online sales from their referrals on this title to sign up for our AFFILIATE PROGRAM. " |
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EXCERPT : Buzzie Bavasi
NAME: Emil Joseph Bavasi
BORN: December 12, 1914
BIRTHPLACE: New York City, NY
YEARS WITH THE DODGERS: 28
POSITION: Executive vice president/general manager from 1950-1968; worked in Brooklyn minor-league system from 1939-1943, 1946-1949 (served in U.S. Army as an infantry machine gunner from 1943-1946, earning the Bronze Star).
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Graduated from DePauw (Indiana) University in 1938; his Dodger teams won eight National League pennants and four World Series titles; named 1949 Minor-League Executive of the Year at Triple-A Montreal; named 1959 Major-League Executive of the Year by The Sporting News; founding president and part-owner of San Diego Padres; general manager of California Angels from 1978-1984.
THE GAME: October 8, 1959; World Series Game 6; Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park.
BUZZIE BASEBALL
Perhaps more than any other person from the 20th century, Buzzie Bavasi is the foremost authority on Dodger history. His baseball career spanned six decades and enough generations to roll with a variety of high-profile executives: Larry MacPhail, Branch Rickey, Walter O’Malley, Ray Kroc, and Gene Autry.
And, at age 92, Bavasi still provides any audience with an unbeatable one-two punch, his wonderful sense of humor sprinkled into countless stories. His razor-sharp memory paints a vivid picture as he recalls how a baseball novice turned into a street-smart executive. Those who marvel at the vigor in his voice when storytelling only need to know his mother nicknamed her son “Buzzie” because of the way be “buzzed” around the house.
His family’s friendship with Ford Frick, National League president and later commissioner of baseball, helped Bavasi get his foot in the door with both the Dodgers and Larry MacPhail, Brooklyn’s team president.
“I was the college roommate of Fred Frick, Ford’s son, and we both went to DePauw University, which is Ford’s alma mater,” Bavasi said. “And when my dad died in 1933, Ford sort of became my other father. When I graduated from college, my mother gave me a great present—a new car and a year to do anything I wanted. Well, the best thing I wanted to do was to go to Florida and watch the ball games.
“And I was sitting in Clearwater Stadium watching the Dodgers play in spring training when Ford came by and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I told him and he said, ‘No longer. Be in my office tomorrow morning.’ So I went back to New York the next day and went to his office. He took me to Brooklyn to meet Larry MacPhail.”
During his Hall of Fame career as an executive with the Reds, Dodgers, and Yankees, MacPhail contributed many innovations to the sport, such as nighttime baseball, regular game televising, and the flying of teams from game to game. The temperamental MacPhail was a colorful character who often clashed with his Dodger manager, the equally fiery Leo Durocher. Brooklyn languished in the standings until MacPhail’s arrival in 1938, and the Dodgers returned to the postseason for the first time in 21 years in 1941.
The Dodgers’ fortunes, along with Bavasi’s life, were about to change when he walked into MacPhail’s office with Frick in 1939.
“So you want to get into baseball?” MacPhail asked.
“I certainly do,” Bavasi replied.
“What do you know about the game?”
“Nothing. I played in college, but that’s about it.”
“Good. Surprised you don’t know anything about the game, but it will do you some good, because we have too many people around here who know everything.”
Bavasi’s career began as an office boy in Brooklyn, although he waited nearly 13 weeks before receiving his first paycheck from MacPhail. In 1940, Bavasi became business manager for Class D Americus of the Georgia-Florida League. He switched to Class D Valdosta in 1941-1942 and Class B Durham in 1943 until he was drafted into the Army during World War II. MacPhail resigned from the Dodgers in 1942 to join the Army.
Rickey was president of the Dodgers in 1945 when he contacted Bavasi following the war. Resting at home in Georgia after returning from his assignment in Italy, Bavasi didn’t realize the biggest challenge of his career would come so early in the minor leagues.
During this time, Rickey decided to break baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson, a former UCLA multisport star currently playing for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues. Robinson and pitcher Johnny Wright would spend the 1946 season at the Dodgers’ top farm club in Montreal.
Rickey asked Bavasi to find a suitable location for a club in the newly reformed New England League. Bavasi thought Rickey might sign other African-American players, so he looked for a community with a racially progressive newspaper and a significant French-Canadian population, believing such a place would be more accepting. He chose Nashua, New Hampshire.
Bavasi negotiated a lease for the city-owned Holman Stadium and spoke with Nashua Telegraph editor Fred Dobens about the city’s racial climate. By March 1, the Dodgers had signed catcher Roy Campanella and pitcher Don Newcombe, but the transactions were not announced for a month in order to give Bavasi time to integrate the team into the community. Bavasi arranged for local war veterans to try out for the team and made French-Canadian ballplayers a priority. He named the newspaper editor, Dobens, president of the club. The Dodgers also promoted the local ties of Brooklyn coach Clyde Sukeforth, who scouted Robinson, Newcombe, and Campanella. Sukeforth briefly played minor-league ball in Nashua in 1926.
Bavasi wanted former Dodger outfielder Stanley “Frenchy” Bordagaray to manage the club, but Bordagaray was assigned to Class C Trois Riviers, Quebec. Walter Alston, the future longtime manager of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers who Bavasi chose in 1953 to succeed Charlie Dressen, became Bavasi’s next preference. The former St. Louis Cardinals farmhand started as a player-manager at first base in 1946, but an injury that season kept Alston in the dugout.
The Nashua Dodgers placed second that year but won the league championship in the playoffs. Campanella was named league MVP, and Newcombe went 14-4.
His associations with Alston, Newcombe, and Campanella at Nashua played a pivotal role in Bavasi’s career. He clearly displayed that he could handle the pressure in tough situations, especially after defending Newcombe and Campanella following a game against the Lynn Red Sox in 1946.
Throughout the matchup, Lynn manager Pip Kennedy and his players subjected Newcombe and Campanella to racial taunting. Bavasi waited until after the game when team officials arrived to collect their share of the gate receipts, then challenged Kennedy to a fight as the rival team stood in the background. Bavasi made sure he was close to the burly Alston—just in case.
“If it weren’t for Buzzie Bavasi, I’d have nothing in baseball,” said Newcombe, who, with the Dodgers, became the only man in history to win the Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and Cy Young Awards. “These guys from the opposing team were calling us names and we promised Branch Rickey that we would keep our heads. We couldn’t do anything, Roy and I, but Buzzie did.”
In 1947, Robinson led the Dodgers to the National League pennant, earning Rookie of the Year honors. Rickey added another star each season—Campanella in 1948, Newcombe in 1949. O’Malley took over the Dodgers following the 1950 season, naming Bavasi as the team’s executive vice president and general manager. The Dodgers lost the pennant in Bavasi’s first season on Bobby Thomson’s ninth-inning home run in Game 3 of the National League playoffs against the Giants.
“We never won a World Series in Brooklyn for over 60 years until 1955,” Bavasi said. “But that 1955 team wasn’t our best club. I thought the 1952 Dodgers was the best team we ever had, with either a Hall of Famer or an All-Star at every position. But we lost in seven games to the New York Yankees, so that team isn’t remembered as much as the 1955 team, because they did something we had tried to do for years—beat those ‘Damn Yankees.’ And anyone who watched that final game in 1955 will say it was their most memorable when we were in Brooklyn.”
Despite the success on the field, O’Malley yearned for a ballpark larger than Ebbets Field, built in 1913 and unable to be expanded because of its neighborhood location. Ebbets Field was sold to a developer in 1956 and the Dodgers retained a three-year lease, though the writing was on the wall for a franchise move. In 1956, the Dodgers also played one game against each National League opponent at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City.
As the landscape was changing, so was the roster. Bavasi made a controversial trade after the 1956 season, sending Robinson to the New York Giants for pitcher Dick Littlefield and $35,000 cash. Robinson had already decided to retire, but he couldn’t tell Bavasi because he had signed a contract with Look Magazine in 1955 for a three-part biography and a future promise of the exclusive retirement announcement, whenever that was to be. Robinson hinted to Bavasi in a telephone conversation prior to the winter meetings not to trade third baseman Randy Jackson, because he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to play in 1957.
The Giants reportedly offered Robinson a $60,000 contract in the hope it would help the team’s sagging attendance. Any thoughts of a comeback ended when Bavasi suggested in the press that Robinson’s magazine story was merely a scheme to get more money from the Giants. Had Robinson accepted the contract and sparked the franchise, it’s debatable whether the Giants would’ve gone along with O’Malley’s plan to move two teams to California.
But the Dodgers and Giants did relocate to the West Coast in 1958. The Giants ventured to Seals Stadium of the Pacific Coast League while the Dodgers played in the cavernous Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which staged track meets and football games. The year began with tragedy when Campanella was paralyzed in a car accident while driving home from work on a snowy night in Long Island in January. Newcombe opened the season 0-6 and was traded on June 15 to Cincinnati for four players, including pitcher Art Fowler and first baseman Steve Bilko. The 1958 Dodgers limped to the finish line with a 71-83 record, 21 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers.
Was this any way to prepare for a championship in 1959?
THE GAME OF MY LIFE
BY BUZZIE BAVASI
During our first year in Los Angeles in 1958, I think most of the players were unhappy, because at that time, only two had been west of the Mississippi. They didn’t acclimate themselves that well. We finished in seventh place, although if Roger Craig had fielded a bunt correctly, we would’ve won the final game and finished in fifth place.
We won the title our second year in Los Angeles. To me, we had as good a ballclub in 1958 as we did in 1959, but the attitude wasn’t there. The players were disappointed. They weren’t happy. The Hodges family never came to California, not once. I think that had a big effect on the attitude of the players. In 1959, they realized they had backing from the fans in California and decided this was where they wanted to play.
We spent our first four seasons at the Coliseum, and the dimensions of the ballpark were not fair to Duke Snider, our great hitter who had 43 home runs during his last year in Brooklyn. Duke hit only 15 home runs in 1958. The Coliseum was 480 feet to right field. Duke was a great outfielder, but asking him to hit home runs at the Coliseum was terrible.
After the 1958 season, I decided we needed to get a left-handed hitter. I had always liked Wally Moon, who I had seen years ago in 1951 at Rochester. He looked like the kind of player who could be a Dodger. He hustled all the time. When I had a chance to get him, we got pitcher Phil Paine and Wally from the Cardinals for Gino Cimoli. Wally turned out to be a knowledgeable hitter. He wasn’t a great player like Duke Snider, but he learned how to hit the ball to left field, which Duke never did. Duke didn’t want to because he was so powerful. But without Wally, there’s no doubt in my mind that we wouldn’t have won anything in 1959.
We brought up Maury Wills during the summer of 1959. Don Zimmer was our shortstop in 1958. Don broke the big toe on his right foot and he really couldn’t get around that well. One day I noticed his shoe was torn. He had made a hole in the front of his shoe so he could play. There was no way it was going to work out, but Don wasn’t about to admit it. Meanwhile, we had Bobby Bragan, who was the manager at Spokane at the time. He made a switch-hitter out of Maury, and that made the big difference. Maury came up and you know what he did—the record speaks for itself. But I have to give credit to Bobby Bragan, because he’s the one who saw that Maury could be a great switch-hitter.
The 1959 season was also the time Sandy Koufax became more of a pitcher. We decided in the middle of the season to put Sandy in the rotation. Don Drysdale became a great pitcher. But the biggest thing that happened was Wally Moon learning how to hit the ball to left field.
Playing at the Coliseum changed the strategy of a lot of managers. You couldn’t play for the home run, so Earl Weaver definitely could not have managed at the Coliseum. Earl was a great manager, but he always depended on the home run and he always had at least three guys who could hit a lot of home runs and three pitchers who could win 20 games or more. But at the Coliseum, you had to manufacture runs.
Walter Alston was great at manufacturing runs, especially with our team in 1959. The hit-and-run, bunt and squeeze—we didn’t go for the home run. To me, it made it an interesting game, more interesting than waiting for a home run. The fans liked it.
The 1959 regular season ended in a tie and we faced the Milwaukee Braves in a playoff for the National League pennant. That was one of the most interesting times of my life. I say that because I wasn’t sure if we could win. Of all the Dodger clubs I had, the 1959 club was one of the weakest, because we had a second baseman playing the outfield, a first baseman playing left field, and Norm Larker and others playing all over the place. We had no set positions.
The job that Walter Alston did in 1959 was the best job he ever did for the Dodgers. Let me tell you a little story. Walter O’Malley was a good baseball man. He knew nothing about the game itself, but he was a great businessman. After 1958, he wanted to fire Walter Alston. I told him, “Well, if Walter goes, I go.” He said, “Well, we’re out here with all these people and we should have a big name.” He wanted Leo Durocher back as manager. There was no way I was going to take Leo back, so I said, “Let’s talk to (coach) Charlie Dressen and (team captain) Pee Wee Reese.” So he said, “Fine.” He figured they’d say, “Let’s get rid of him.” But they told Walter right in the hotel room, “You fire Alston and we quit, too.” So that settled it.
In the 1959 playoffs, the Dodgers were motivated by pride. They weren’t motivated by money. The team and the office staff were motivated by pride, everybody in management, too. I think that’s what won it for us—the attitude of players. Milwaukee had a great club and great management, but I think our players wanted it more than Milwaukee did.
I give credit to John Corriden for the 1959 World Series, believe it or not. John was a scout around 80 years old, living in Indianapolis. And I believe in old scouts. I called him during the season and said, “John, we need a relief pitcher. Find one for me.” He scouted the minor leagues and finally called, saying, “I found one for you.”
“Who?”
“Larry Sherry.”
“C’mon, John. He’s been with us for two years and he can’t pitch.”
“What are you paying me for Buzzie? You want information and I’m giving it to you. If you don’t bring him up to the Dodgers, then I quit, so help me.”
So we brought Larry up to the Dodgers and the rest is history. Carl Erskine retired and Larry, along with Roger Craig, took his place. We finished the regular season tied with the Braves for first place.
During the first playoff game against Milwaukee, Larry was brought out of the bullpen in the second inning while John Corriden was home in Indianapolis, seated in front of his television set. As Larry was coming into the game, he asked his wife, “Could you bring me a lollipop?” That was John’s phrase for a beer. She said, “Sure.” When she came back to give John the beer, he was dead in his chair. He never saw Larry pitch that first playoff game. Larry wound up pitching 7 2/3 innings in relief of Danny McDevitt that afternoon.
I think Larry did a helluva job, but I think he was doing an even better job because of John Corriden. What can I say about Sherry’s performance against the White Sox? All I can do is praise him. Everyone knows Larry Sherry won the World Series for us.
THE RESULTS
After both teams posted 86-68 records to end the regular season, the Dodgers defeated the Braves in the best-of-three National League playoff. Sherry pitched the final 7 2/3 innings of a 3-2 victory in the first game at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. Sherry didn’t pitch in the second game in Los Angeles, won by the Dodgers 6-5 in 12 innings, as right-hander Stan Williams pitched three hitless innings of relief and earned the decision when Milwaukee shortstop Felix Mantilla’s two-out throwing error allowed Gil Hodges to score from second base in the bottom of the 12th.
When the Dodgers faced the Chicago White Sox in 1959, it was the first time they had squared off in a World Series against a team other than the New York Yankees since 1920. Between 1941 and 1956, the Dodgers and Yankees met seven times with Brooklyn winning only once, in 1955.
The Dodgers lost the first game of the 1959 World Series 11-0 at Comiskey Park. But Los Angeles took control of the Series with three consecutive victories. The turning point occurred in Game 2 with the Dodgers trailing Bob Shaw 2-1 in the sixth inning. With two out, manager Walter Alston batted Chuck Essegian for his pitcher, Johnny Podres. Essegian, a former Stanford halfback who played only 24 games in 1959 as a reserve outfielder, hit a home run. Jim Gilliam followed with a walk and Charlie Neal’s two-run homer chased Shaw to give the Dodgers a 4-2 cushion. Sherry scattered a run on three hits in the final three innings to preserve Podres’ victory.
In Game 3, Dodger starter Don Drysdale allowed 11 hits and four walks in seven-plus innings, but Chicago managed only one run. Sherry pitched the final two innings of a 3-1 victory. Game 4 was tied 4-4 until Gil Hodges hit a leadoff home run in the eighth against Gerry Staley. Sherry held the 5-4 margin with two scoreless innings.
Sherry took the day off in Game 5 as Sandy Koufax and Stan Williams pitched brilliantly in a 1-0 defeat. The only run of the game was scored in the fourth when Sherm Lollar grounded into a double play with runners on first and third.
Back in Chicago, the Dodgers closed out the Series with a 9-3 victory in Game 6. Staked to an 8-0 lead by the fourth inning, the White Sox crept back into the game. Ted Kluszewski hit a three-run home run, and when Podres walked the next batter, Alston went to the bullpen. Sherry allowed a single and walk to load the bases, but he escaped further damage when Luis Aparicio popped to shortstop to end the inning. Sherry restored order with 5 2/3 scoreless innings and was named the Series MVP with a 2-0 record, two saves, and a 0.71 ERA in 12 2/3 innings. The Dodgers also became the first team to win a championship after finishing in seventh place the previous season.
ONCE A DODGER, ALWAYS A DODGER
If the 1959 championship caught Dodger fans by surprise in Los Angeles, great expectations became the attitude in the early 1960s when the Dodgers made three World Series appearances in a four-year span from 1963-1966. The first year at Dodger Stadium in 1962 ended with heartbreak as the Giants won the National League playoff with a ninth-inning rally in Game 3 similar to 1951, when the teams battled in New York. In retrospect, it was the biggest disappointment of Bavasi’s career, because he knew O’Malley wanted a World Series for the stadium’s debut.
The Dodgers rallied and swept the Yankees in the 1963 World Series. Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale packed a 1-2 punch on the pitcher’s mound while Maury Wills terrorized the basepaths and Tommy Davis notched his second consecutive batting title.
“The 1959 World Series was just the beginning of many postseason success stories in Los Angeles, especially in the early 1960s when we reached the World Series in 1963, 1965, and 1966,” Bavasi said. “I didn’t believe it, but the Chamber of Commerce told me that every time we got to the World Series, it meant an additional $150 million for the city of Los Angeles. They said, ‘You don’t know how much people pay for hotels, cabs, food, and entertainment. If the Series went seven games, it meant $150 million.’ So at least we were doing something for the city. Of course, Walter O’Malley wasn’t doing too bad, either.”
Prior to the 1966 season, Koufax and Drysdale staged their famous holdout. The Hall of Fame duo combined for 49 victories, 47 complete games, and 644 innings in 1965. In an era before free agency, Koufax and Drysdale didn’t have agents; rather, they met together with Bavasi for better leverage. According to Bavasi, each pitcher sought a three-year contract for $500,000. In 1965, Koufax had made $85,000 and Drysdale $80,000. The pitchers missed most of spring training while Bavasi and O’Malley, wielding all the power, enjoyed the publicity of “the great holdout.”
“Walter played along with it brilliantly,” Bavasi later wrote in his 1986 autobiography. “He knew how to agitate the situation by calling the boys at a propitious time—when they were out. He’d leave messages for them to call him, and they would religiously return their calls. Then, Walter would tell the reporters that the boys were getting anxious to come back, that they were calling every day.”
Actor Chuck Connors, a former Brooklyn Dodger farmhand, brokered a meeting among Bavasi, Koufax, and Drysdale. Koufax received $125,000 and Drysdale $110,000, although Bavasi graciously offered $117,500 each if they still insisted on receiving the same salary.
The Dodgers won the pennant again in 1966, but there wasn’t a Round II in negotiations. Following a 27-win season, Koufax retired at age 30 due to arthritis in the left elbow.
“I’ve often wondered how much Koufax and Drysdale would command if they were playing today and came in together and asked for $2 million each,” Bavasi said. “What would you do? Make them partners in the club?”
The Dodgers went south in the standings, finishing eighth in 1967, and Bavasi left the Dodgers in June 1968 to join the expansion San Diego Padres, set to join the National League in 1969. San Diego owner C. Arnholt Smith, a banker by trade, encountered personal financial trouble and the early Padres teams were horrible, even after McDonald’s restaurant chain owner, Ray Kroc, took over in 1974.
Bavasi joined the Angels in 1977. While he enjoyed the resources of Gene Autry, the dawn of free agency and arbitration hearings began to take the fun of the game away from Bavasi. His relationship with Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan became strained when Bavasi decided Ryan wasn’t worth $1 million a year following a 16-14 campaign in 1979. Bavasi uttered his most infamous one-liner at the time, explaining that the Angels could replace Ryan “with a couple of 8-7 pitchers.”
Eleven years later when Ryan pitched his sixth career no-hitter, Bavasi sent Ryan a telegram: “Nolan—Some time ago I made it public that I made a mistake. You don’t have to rub it in.”
During Bavasi’s tenure, the Angels made their first two playoff appearances in team history as American League Western Division champions in 1979 and 1982. Bavasi left the Angels in 1984, but he remained active in his retirement, especially with the advent of cable television and e-mail.
“He outgrew the sport and the sport outgrew him,” wrote Hall of Fame outfielder Reggie Jackson in the introduction to Bavasi’s book, Off the Record. “He wanted the game to stay old school, though I don’t think he refused to change with it. He just didn’t want to change his way of life. He dealt with us as if he were our uncle—our Uncle Buzzie. Buzzie wanted people to come to him with their problems and seek his help or advice. … Buzzie was taught under the tutelage of a very knowledgeable baseball man, Branch Rickey. You can’t do better than that. To me, Buzzie is the kind of guy who was born at the age of 60 and will always be 60. He is always your dad, always your father. He has the jowls, the receding hairline, a heavyset way about him. I knew Buzzie when I was 19 years old. When I was 19, he looked 60. When I was 40, he still looked 60.”
And the man who haggled with ballplayers over $500 bonuses in the early 1950s later watched his son Bill Bavasi, general manager of the Seattle Mariners, lavish a combined $114 million in contracts to a pair of free agents, third baseman Adrian Beltre and outfielder Richie Sexson, after the 2004 season. Buzzie’s reaction? “I told my wife we must’ve brought the wrong baby home from the hospital.”
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