Buzzie and the Bull: A Gm, a Clubhouse Favorite, and the Dodgers’ 1965 Championship Season

Buzzie and the Bull chronicles a baseball year in the lives of two lifelong friends who couldn’t be more different: Buzzie Bavasi, the legendary general manager of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, and Al ＂the Bull＂ Ferrara, bon vivant and bench player. Their 1965 baseball journey encompassed a thrilling pennant race settled on the final day of the season, a city engulfed in flames, a perfect game, and a GM who extolled his friend the Bull as a hero in May and then banished him from the team in July.

Over seventeen years, Bavasi’s teams won eight pennants and four World Series titles. His approach deserves review, and his friendship with Ferrara illustrates the ground on which he staked his baseball career. The summer of 1965 proved Bavasi’s thesis that champions are built on players with one core characteristic: nerves of steel.

A look at the partnership of a general manager who valued fearlessness above all else and a player who loved living on the edge, Buzzie and the Bull offers a counterpoint to today’s focus on advanced statistical analysis that may be crowding out the important work of discovering a player’s unique human qualities: the intangibles.

Ken LaZebnik is a writer best known for his work in television, film, and theater. Among his many credits are writing and producing the television series Touched by an Angel and co-writing the screenplay for the film A Prairie Home Companion. A lifelong baseball fan, LaZebnik co-founded the Minneapolis Review of Baseball, which later became Elysian Fields Quarterly. Bob Bavasi is an attorney, longtime Minor League club owner, and principal with Bavasi Sports Partners.