We resume today The Sunday Funnies, baseball stories and quips that tickle my sense of humor. They may not all be historically accurate, but the point is more amusement than truth.
With any luck, I'll avoid repeating tales told in previous winters, but I make no guarantee of that.
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Al "The Bull" Ferrara was a slow-footed right-handed slugging outfielder of the 1960s and early '70s. A bench piece for the Dodgers for much of the '60s, he got a chance to play semi-regularly with the expansion San Diego Padres in 1969 and 1970, and the Padres determined that what he provided with the bat was pretty much negated in the field and on the bases.
So they traded him early in the 1971 season to the defending NL champion Cincinnati Reds for Angel Bravo, a light-hitting speedy left-handed outfielder.
One day Sparky Anderson, the Reds manager, made the mistake of putting the Bull in left field, and he promptly turned a routine fly ball into an extra base hit. Anderson was visibly fuming on the bench as the inning ended and Ferrara returned to the dugout.
But before Sparky could light into Ferrara, the veteran stopped him with: "What the hell did you expect for Angel Bravo?"
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