Sunday, August 9, 2020

Review of "Buzzie and the Bull"

 Even though I am not a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers, I find books about them to be some of the better baseball books. This book on a part-time player and the GM of the 1965 World Champions is another one of those good books on the Dodgers.  Here is my review of "Buzzie and the Bull"


Title/Author:

“Buzzie and the Bull: A GM, a Clubhouse Favorite and the Dodgers’ 1965 Championship Season” by Ken Lazebnik

 Tags:

Baseball, professional, biography, Dodgers, championship

 Publish date:

September 1, 2020

 Length:

208 pages

 Rating:

4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review:

In 1965, the Los Angeles Dodgers were considered by many to be the premier franchise in baseball as they were in the midst of winning three pennants in eight seasons as the New York Yankees were starting to fade.  The Dodgers were built by general manager Emil “Buzzie” Bavasi and both his eye for baseball talent and his hardball negotiation tactics with players were legendary. There was one player for that 1965 Dodgers championship team for which Bavasi had a soft spot and that was Al “ the Bull” Ferrara. Their friendship and what it meant to those Dodgers is the subject of this book by Ken Lazebnik.

 The book might be better titled “The Bull and Buzzie” because there is much more written about Ferrara than Bavasi. That could be because, as Lazzbnik notes in his sources, the interviews he had with Ferrara resulted in many great stories as the Bull’s memory was sharp and the stories were plentiful. Bavasi’s stories, on the other hand, had to come from interviews with family members as he passed away in 2008.

Ferrara mentions several times throughout the book he loved to both work and play to life’s fullest.  His off-field adventures of gambling on the horses, visits to establishments with less-than-sterling reputations and his enjoyment of adult beverages and female companionship made for very entertaining reading. Both his teammates and his general manager on the Dodgers loved to hear about them as the Bull became one of the more popular figures in the Los Angeles clubhouse even though he was only a part-time player. 

For the most part, Bavasi said little about Ferrara’s lifestyle, but when one incident in July 1965 tested that patience,  Bavasi sent Ferrara to the minor leagues and did not call him back up until September 1 of that season, too late to be included on the roster for the World Series.  While Ferrara talks about being grateful to his teammates for voting him a full share of the bonus given to players who are on the winning championship team, a player must be on the roster to earn a championship ring and Ferrara’s showing of his bare hands to the author during this interview illustrates how much he still feels that slight, even though he always accepted whatever fate came his way through his actions.

That is just one illustration that Lazebnik uses to give the reader an in-depth look at Ferrara as the stories of his drinking and gambling are just as entertaining, if not more so, than the baseball writing.  Most of the baseball passages are fairly basic as readers who have read other books on the Dodgers of that ear, or biographies of some of the players such as Sandy Koufax, would probably already know most of that information.  To his credit, Lazebnik acknowledges this and gives credit to some of those publications, such as Michael Lehay’s excellent book on those Dodgers teams, “The Last Innocents.”

While there is some good information on Bavasi as well, this book is best suited for those readers who want to learn more about the life of a player who wasn’t a star but instead a popular bench player for an outstanding team.  The friendship of Bavasi and Ferrara is a recurring throughout the book, including when both player and GM moved from the Dodgers in late 1968 to the expansion San Diego Padres.  It’s a fun, quick read that fans of the Dodgers will enjoy.  

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.                                                                         

Book Format Read:

E-book (Kindle)                                                                                                                                

Buying Links:

https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496213174/

 https://www.amazon.com/Buzzie-Bull-Clubhouse-Favorite-Championship/dp/1496213173/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

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