Pastime Passings--Buzzie Bavasi

I had never really championed Buzzie Bavasi for the Hall of Fame, but after hearing about his passing on Thursday at age 93 and reading his lengthy obituary, I have to ask: why isn't he in the Hall of Fame? During his long tenure with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, eight of his teams went to the World Series, and four of those won world championships. That's a pretty good start to Bavasi's Hall of Fame argument right there.

Let's consider some of the specifics of what Bavasi achieved as the leader of Dodger Blue, which included 18 years as the team's general manager and more than a decade as a key minor league executive:

*In addition to the multiple pennants and World Series, Bavasi's teams finished second four times and third once. So in other words, Bavasi's Dodgers finished first, second, or third 13 times in 18 seasons, all within the context of an eight-team league. That's impressive consistency.

*Under Bavasi's watch as GM, the Dodgers developed pitching aces Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Johnny Podres, and a host of key contributors, from Johnny Roseboro and Junior Gilliam to Maury Wills and Tommy Davis. A later wave of talent brought in the likes of Frank Howard, Willie Davis and Ron Fairly, not to mention Don Sutton, Bill Singer, and Ron Perranoski.

*Though never a wheeler and dealer--Bavasi preferred growing players from within the Dodgers' system--he did make some shrewd trades. He acquired lefty Claude Osteen from the Senators while giving up Howard, then watched Osteen become a mainstay in the Los Angeles rotation from 1965 until 1973. Bavasi stole Jim Brewer, an effective left-handed reliever, from the Cubs for the immortal Dick Scott, and also heisted Phil Regan, an important righty reliever, from the Tigers for Dick Tracewski. He managed to pry loose Wally Moon at the mere expense of Gino Cimoli, giving the Dodgers an important left-handed power bat in the early-1960s. He also acquired a vital role player in Sweet Lou Johnson, who became an outfield mainstay for three seasons and a World Series hero in 1965 against the Twins.

*As a bonus, Bavasi became somewhat of a racial pioneer at the minor league level. Asked by Branch Rickey to oversee the Dodgers' new minor league affiliate at Nashua, Bavasi helped make life easier for two of the organization's young African-American stars, Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe. Bavasi not only eased their difficult transition from the Negro Leagues to integrated baseball, but he challenged the manager of the opposition Lynn Red Sox to a fight when some of the Sox players hurled racial taunts at Campanella and Newcombe.

I feel bad not having argued for Bavasi prior to his passing. It shouldn't take someone's death to make us more aware of a person's accomplishments, but I guess that's an indictment of human nature. From the rear view mirror, Bavasi's Hall of Fame worthiness looks pretty clear to me. In response to my question about why Bavasi hasn't made it to Cooperstown, baseball historian extraordinaire Steve Treder offered a reply over at Baseball Think Factory, "[That's a] good question. He did a thoroughly brilliant job with the Dodgers, running an organization that was top-to-bottom excellent, for nearly 20 years." When you guide your franchise to the kind of success that Bavasi did over the span of almost two decades, that seems to me like the work of a Hall of Fame general manager.

Perhaps Bavasi has been overlooked because of those who worked with him--and before him--with the Dodgers. His predecessor as Dodgers GM was Branch Rickey, one of the game's clearest thinkers, the man who brought Jackie Robinson to the big leagues, and a certifiable baseball genius. That's a tough act to follow, though Bavasi did it very well. And then there was Bavasi's owner during his time with the Dodgers. Walter O'Malley, the National League's most influential owner for decades, cast a long shadow as a mover and shaker. O'Malley himself didn't earn election to the Hall of Fame until last December, so perhaps it's understandable that Bavasi has had to wait this long.

There's another factor at work here, too. In general, general managers are woefully underrepresented in the Hall of Fame. Unless they happened to have doubled as owners, their chances of making the grade in Cooperstown haven't been very strong. Look at some of the men who have been elected to the Hall of Fame at least in part for their work as de facto general managers. Rickey was, for a time, the Dodgers' owner, Lee MacPhail worked for a long time as the American League president, Ed Barrow was an owner, and Bill Veeck was an owner. As fellow historian Eric Enders has pointed out, only George Weiss has been elected to the Hall of Fame solely for his work as a GM. Weiss was never an owner, never a league president, and never a pioneer in the sense of Rickey.

Well, it's time to change that trend. General managers are vitally important to building championship ballclubs. The best ones should be represented in Cooperstown. Bob Howsam, the architect of the Big Red Machine who died earlier this year, should be in, as should Bavasi. Arguments could also be made for Harry Dalton (based on his work in Baltimore) and perhaps even Joe Brown (the architect of two championship teams in Pittsburgh). And perhaps one day John Schuerholz, the longtime general manager of the Braves, will receive his due in the form of a plaque in the Hall of Fame Gallery.

We can only hope that the same honor is given to Bavasi, even if it has to come after he can enjoy it.