Inspirational Quotes by Buzzie Bavasi (American Baseball Executive)

Buzzie Bavasi (1914–2008,) fully Emil Joseph Bavasi, was an American executive in Major League Baseball for nearly a half-century. He played a significant role in the operation of three franchises from the late 1940s through the mid-1980s.

Born in Manhattan, New York City, Bavasi attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. He started in baseball in 1939 as an office boy job with the Dodgers. He was named business manager of the Dodgers’ Americus, Georgia, farm team in 1940. He then spent three seasons as an executive in the low minors before entering the Army, where he was a machine-gunner in the Italian campaign, winning a bronze star. After the war, he managed the Dodgers’ Nashua, New Hampshire, farm club in 1946.

Bavasi was best known as the general manager of the Dodgers 1951–68 during their glory years in Brooklyn and their first decade in Los Angeles. During this time, the Dodgers captured eight National League pennants and its first four World Series titles.

Bavasi was a prominent figure in the integration of minor league baseball in the late 1940s. He was the first president of the San Diego Padres (1968–77;) then, 1977–84, as general manager, he assembled the California Angels teams that made the franchise’s first two postseason appearances.

Bavasi championed the acceptance of black players in organized baseball, helped take major league baseball to California, put together an expansion team in San Diego, and saw power shift from management to the players with the arrival of free agency, the ability to sign freely with any club or franchise and not remain under contract to any specific team.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Buzzie Bavasi