Emil Joseph "Buzzie" Bavasi (; December 12, 1914 – May 1, 2008) was an American executive in Major League Baseball who played a major role in the operation of three California baseball franchises from the late 1940s through the mid-1980s, most notably as the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1958 to 1968.
He began his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers. During his tenure with the team, the Dodgers captured eight National League pennants and its first four World Series titles. He was previously a key figure in the integration of Minor League Baseball in the late 1940s while working for the Dodgers organization. He went on to become the first president of the San Diego Padres (1968–77); then, between 1977 and 1984, as general manager, he assembled the California Angels teams that made the franchise's first two postseason appearances. His sons Peter Bavasi and Bill Bavasi have also served as big league general managers.
Early life
He was born Emil Joseph Bavasi in Manhattan, New York City. His sister, Iola ("Lolly"), nicknamed him Buzzie because his mother said he was "always buzzing around." Bavasi was raised in Scarsdale, New York, by Joseph and Sue Bavasi. Joseph, his immigrant father, was a newspaper distributor.
He went to high school at Fordham Preparatory School, in the Bronx, with Fred Frick, the son of Ford Frick, president of the National League.
Bavasi was hired by Dodgers general manager Larry MacPhail in 1938, for $35 a week, to become a front office assistant with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and after one year was named the business manager of the Dodgers' Class D minor league team in Americus, Georgia, where he spent three seasons. In 1941 he moved to Durham, North Carolina, Class B team of the Dodgers and married his wife, Evit. The Dodgers also finished in a dead heat twice with the Giants, necessitating tie-breaking, best-of-three series in both 1951 and 1962. But they dropped the clinching playoff games in the ninth innings of each contest.
While the nucleus of the Brooklyn-based team was in place when Bavasi took over in 1951, he and O'Malley remained committed to the Dodgers' extensive scouting and player development system that Rickey had constructed after the war. That system contributed players such as Joe Black, Jim Gilliam, Johnny Podres and Sandy Amoros (heroes of the 1955 World Series), Roger Craig, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Charlie Neal, John Roseboro and Don Zimmer to the Dodgers before their move to California. In the late 1950s, it produced Larry Sherry, a relief pitcher who was key to the 1959 pennant and World Series title. It also began to churn out the core regulars of the Dodgers' 1960s dynasty, such as Tommy Davis, Willie Davis, Ron Fairly, Frank Howard and Maury Wills. During the mid-1960s, the Dodgers developed Jim Lefebvre, Wes Parker and Don Sutton, key contributors to their 1965–66 pennants. Bavasi also made strategic additions of veteran players who proved pivotal to pennant-winning teams, like Sal Maglie (1956), Wally Moon (1959), Bill Skowron (1963), Claude Osteen (1965–66, after he was acquired for Howard), Lou Johnson (1965–66) and Phil Regan (1966). In 1960, he acquired (in a trade for Zimmer) a minor-league left-handed relief pitcher from the Chicago Cubs, Ron Perranoski, who would anchor the Dodgers' bullpen through 1967.
Bavasi also strongly recommended Walter Alston to O'Malley as a potential Brooklyn manager after the 1953 season. Alston, then a career minor leaguer, had managed for Bavasi in Nashua (1946) and Montreal (1950). O'Malley would hire Alston and sign him to 23 consecutive one-year contracts, with Alston winning seven National League pennants and four World Series titles while forging a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
During his time with the Dodgers, Bavasi became known for his deceptive methods of negotiating contracts with players. He prided himself in giving as little salary to a player as possible. Amongst his methods was leaving a fake contract on his desk during a negotiation with a player and leaving the room for a while. The player, noticing the lesser salary his star teammate was getting compared to what they was asking, would often lower the salary he wanted.
He also played players against each other. However, in 1966, tired of being played against each other, Dodger pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale staged a joint holdout in which they were successful in getting Bavasi to bend a little. Though Bavasi dismissed the holdout as a "gimmick", it turned out to be the first notable event in baseball's labor movement.
Padres
In June of 1968, Bavasi resigned from the Dodgers to become president and minority owner of the San Diego Padres, an expansion team set to debut in . Bavasi selected Dodger third-base coach Preston Gómez as the Padres' first manager and added former Dodgers (or Dodger farmhands) Craig, Moon and Sparky Anderson as coaches for their maiden season. While the pickings in the National League expansion draft were slim, Bavasi managed to select slugger Nate Colbert and hard-hitting outfielders Ollie Brown and Cito Gaston, who provided punch to the Padre lineup during the team's early history.
The early Padres teams struggled on the field, finishing last in the National League West Division for their first six years of existence, losing over 100 games four times (and 99 games once). The team's high-water mark during Bavasi's nine-year term as club president would occur in , when it won 73 games. Poor attendance forced majority owner C. Arnholdt Smith to put the Padres up for sale in 1973 and almost drove them to transfer to Washington, D.C. But fast-food magnate Ray Kroc stepped in and saved the Padres for San Diego, and attendance perked up beginning in 1974, Kroc's first season as owner.
Although veteran minor league executive Eddie Leishman held the title of general manager during the team's early seasons, Bavasi was integrally involved in baseball decisions. After the 1972 season, he promoted his son Peter from farm system director to GM, and the younger Bavasi drafted future Hall of Famer Dave Winfield with the club's first-round pick in the 1973 Major League Baseball draft. Peter left the Padres after the 1976 campaign to become the first president in the history of the expansion Toronto Blue Jays, and in 1977, the Bavasis became the first father-and-son duo to serve as chief executives of two different MLB teams at the same time.
Angels
After the 1977 season, California Angels owner Gene Autry hired the elder Bavasi as executive vice president and general manager. During his seven years in the post, the Angels captured American League West Division titles in and , the club's first-ever appearances in the baseball postseason. But each time the Angels failed to advance to the World Series, dropping the 1979 American League Championship Series to the Baltimore Orioles and the 1982 ALCS to the Milwaukee Brewers.
Through trades, free agency and the club's farm system, Bavasi acquired players such as Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, Carney Lansford, Bob Boone, Fred Lynn, Mike Witt and Don Aase. But there were setbacks: the shocking death of star free agent outfielder Lyman Bostock, who was murdered late during the 1978 season in a case of mistaken identity, and the failure to retain future all-time strikeout king Nolan Ryan when he became a free agent after the 1979 campaign. Nearing age 70, Bavasi retired during the closing days of the 1984 season, when the Angels finished at the .500 mark.
Record as general manager
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%; text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2"|Team !! rowspan="2"|Year !! colspan="5"|Regular season !! colspan="4"|Postseason
|-
!Games!!Won!!Lost!!Win %!!Finish!! Won !! Lost !! Win % !! Result
|-
!BKN||
||157||||2nd in NL||–||–||–||–
|-style="background:#fdd"
!BKN||
||154||||1st in NL||||Lost World Series (NYY)
|-style="background:#fdd"
!BKN||
||154||||1st in NL||||Lost World Series (NYY)
|-
!BKN||
||154||||2nd in NL||–||–||–||–
|-style="background:#fde910"
!BKN||
||154||||1st in NL||||Won World Series (NYY)
|-style="background:#fdd"
!BKN||
||154||||1st in NL||||Lost World Series (NYY)
|-
!BKN||
||154||||3rd in NL||–||–||–||–
|-
!LAD||
||154||||7th in NL||–||–||–||–
|-style="background:#fde910"
!LAD||
||154||||1st in NL||||Won World Series (CHW)
|-
!LAD||
||154||||3rd in NL||–||–||–||–
|-
!LAD||
||154||||2nd in NL||–||–||–||–
|-
!LAD||
||165||||2nd in NL||–||–||–||–
|-style="background:#fde910"
!LAD||
||162||||1st in NL||||Won World Series (NYY)
|-
!LAD||
||162||||6th in NL||–||–||–||–
|-style="background:#fde910"
!LAD||
||162||||1st in NL||||Won World Series (MIN)
|-style="background:#fdd"
!LAD||
||162||||1st in NL||||Lost World Series (BAL)
|-
!LAD||
||162||||8th in NL||–||–||–||–
|-
!LAD||
||162||||7th in NL||–||–||–||–
|-
!colspan="2"|BKN/LAD total||2,834||||||||
|-
!CAL||
||162||||2nd in AL West||–||–||–||–
|-style="background:#fdd"
!CAL||
||162||||1st in AL West||||Lost ALCS (BAL)
|-
!CAL||
||160||||6th in AL West||–||–||–||–
|-
|-
!rowspan="2"| CAL|| rowspan="2"|
||60|||| 4th in AL West || rowspan="2"| – || rowspan="2"| – || rowspan="2"| – || rowspan="2"| –
|-
||50|||| 7th in AL West
|-style="background:#fdd"
!CAL||
||162||||1st in AL West||||Lost ALCS (MIL)
|-
!CAL||
||162||||5th in AL West||–||–||–||–
|-
!CAL||
||162||||2nd in AL West||–||–||–||–
|-
!colspan="2"|CAL total||1,080||||||||
|-
!colspan="2"|Total||3,914||||||||
|}
Personal life
Bavasi's son Bill is the former general manager of the Seattle Mariners and California Angels; son Peter held president or general manager positions with the Padres, Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians during the 1970s and 1980s; and another son, Chris, formerly served as mayor of Flagstaff, Arizona. With his wife, Evit, they had a fourth son, Bob, the former owner of the Everett AquaSox. In 2007, he was also inducted by the San Diego Hall of Champions, honoring San Diego's finest athletes both on and off the playing surface.
Actor Wally Cassell played Buzzie (Dodgers manager) in season 1, episode 29 of The Beverly Hillbillies, titled "The Clampetts & the Dodgers".
Bavasi died on May 1, 2008, in San Diego, California, near his home in La Jolla, aged 93.