Buzzie Bavasi, General Manager of the Dodgers

Baseball has lost a General Manager that brought victory to baseball in more ways than one.  Buzzie Bavasi has died of natural causes at the age of 92 in San Diego.  Bavasi is most closely associated with the Brooklyn and then the Los Angeles Dodgers, though, later in his career, he held executive positions with the brand new San Diego Padres and then the California Angels.   With Bavasi in the role of General Manager, the Dodgers of Brooklyn and LA won eight National League pennants and four World Series championships.   Players on his Dodgers teams included Pee Wee Reese, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Gil Hodges, Maury Wills and Duke Snider.  Later in his career, as General Manager of the California Angels, his team went to the playoffs twice.

But although his reputation as a leader of champions is noteworthy, his work as an advocate for the integration of baseball is possibly more important.  Having started with the Brooklyn Dodgers as an office boy, he worked his way into executive positions in the minor leagues.  His career was interrupted by World War II, during which he won a bronze star.  Then, after the war, he managed the Doders’ Nashua farm club.  Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella, former players with the Negro Leagues, were players on that team.  Jackie Robinson had been signed by the Dodgers and was playing Minor League ball in Canada, so the Major Leagues had not yet been integrated.  Bavasi not only had to groom Newcombe and Campanella to become Major League players, he also needed to handle ugly racial incidents occasioned by their presence on the team.  One such instance took place during a game against the Lynn Red Sox.  The Red Sox catcher threw dirt in Campanella’s face and the Red Sox manager used racial epithets referring to Campanella and Newcombe.  Bavasi challenged the Red Sox manager to a fight in front of his team.   The Dodgers intervened to break it up.

After working for the Dodgers in the Montral farm team, Bavasi became Vice President and General Manager of the Dodgers in 1951.   Campanella, Newcombe and Robinson all played for him there.

If he defended his players, even at the risk of a fist fight, from racial discrimination, he fought hard against them to keep their salaries down.  And in the days before free agency and the role of the players’ agent in contract negotiations, he prevailed.  He sometimes would have a false contract prepared for a good player with an inaccurately low amount filled in for the salary.  In a salary negotiation with another player, he would find an excuse to leave the room, the misleading contract still on his desk.  In Bavasi’s absence, the negotiating player would take a look at the other player’s contract and back off from his original salary requirements.

In 1966, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, having learned that Bavasi had mislead each of them concerning the other’s salary, formed a union of two and attempted to negotiate their contracts jointly with Bavasi.  They were looking for a joint $1,000,000 contract.  Both Koufax and Drysdale failed to report for spring training during the negotiation process and threatened to retire.  Bavasi, however, held out longer than either of the players.  Both players broke the $100,000 mark, but signed for far less than the half-million each was looking for.

Having left the Dodgers and moved on to the California Angels, he was less successful in his negotiations with Nolan Ryan.  Ryan, displeased with his offer after a 16-14 season, picked up and left California, signing with the Houston Astros.  Ryan, who pitched another 14 seasons after leaving California, holds the strikout record with 5,714 and is a member of the Hall of Fame.  Bavasi admitted that it had been a mistake not to retain him.

Bavasi’s four sons have gone on to prominent careers themselves.  Bill Bavasi is the General Manager of the Seattle Mariners, who announed Bavasi’s death.  Peter Bavasi was Vice President and General Manager of the Padres, and later served as president of the Toronto Blue Jays and the Cleveland Indians.  Bob owned a minor league team in Everett, Washington.  Chris is mayor of Flagstaff, Arizona.

His four sons survive him, along with Bavasi’s wife of 68 years, Evit, their nine grandchildren and their five great-grandchildren.  The family has requested that donations be made to the Baseball Assistance Team or the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation.

A long life, and a life of some notable accomplishments.  God bless you, Buzzie.