Buzzie and the Bull

Buzzie and the Bull chronicles a baseball year in the lives of two lifelong friends who couldnt 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, Bavasis 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 Bavasis 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 todays focus on advanced statistical analysis that may be crowding out the important work of discovering a players unique human qualities: the intangibles.