Buzzie Bavasi’s Dodgers won eight National League pennants and the first four World Series in that franchise’s history, including three after the club moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
Perhaps owner Walter O’Malley felt indebted to his general manager when he huddled with the rest of the NL’s owners on this date — May 27 — in 1968 to award MLB franchises to two cities. Bavasi had partnered with Pacific Coast League Padres owner C. Arnholt Smith in petitioning for a franchise against similar interests in Montreal, Buffalo, Dallas-Fort Worth and Milwaukee.
“I’m voting for Buzzie,” O’Malley reportedly told his colleagues, “not the city of San Diego.