Al Ferrara

Alfred John Ferrara Jr.
(The Bull)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 203 lb.
• School Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus
• High School Lafayette High School (Brooklyn)
• Debut July 30, 1963
• Final Game September 1, 1971
• Born December 22, 1939 in Brooklyn, NY USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Al Ferrara was an outfielder who once played piano at Carnegie Hall. He was a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the days of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Tommy Davis. He appeared in a number of television shows and movies, sometimes along with teammate Jim Lefebvre.

A Brooklyn boy, he attended high school with Bob Aspromonte. He was signed by the Dodgers in 1959 when they had already moved to Los Angeles. He came up for the first time in 1963 at age 21, and was the roommate of veteran Johnny Podres. He did not play in the 1963 World Series. He came up again in 1965 for 41 games. He did not play in the 1965 Series.

In 1966, he had over 100 at-bats, hitting .270, and appeared as a pinch-hitter in the fourth game of the 1966 World Series, hitting a single. His last year with the Dodgers was in 1968, when he played in two games with them.

He was picked by the San Diego Padres in the expansion draft, and became one of the original Padres in 1969. He hit .260 with 14 home runs in 1969, and followed that up with a .277 average and 13 home runs in 1970. On April 22, 1970, he was the first and last batter of a continuous string of ten strikeout victims by the New York Mets' Tom Seaver. In the same game, he homered off Seaver for the Padres' only run in a 2-1 New York win.

He closed out his career with San Diego and the Cincinnati Reds with 49 games played in 1971.

One of the most similar players to Ferrara, using the similarity scores method, is Dodger player Sandy Amoros. However, Amoros played most of his career in a hitter's park in Brooklyn, while Ferrara played most of his career during the dead ball era of the 1960s.

He was nicknamed "The Bull" because he was very muscular. A teammate, on hearing that Ferrara had played piano at Carnegie Hall, quipped that Ferrara was probably a piano mover instead of a piano player, because of the muscles. He once played a headhunter on an episode of Gilligan's Island, and was in several episodes of the TV show Batman. Ferrara also competed on 1970s game show Match Game [1].

Notable Achievements

• Won two World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers (1963 & 1965; he played in neither World Series)

Further Reading

• Ken LaZebnik: Buzzie and the Bull: A GM, a Clubhouse Favorite, and the Dodgers’ 1965 Championship Season, University of Nebraska Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4962-1317-4

Related Sites

• Al Ferrara at the SABR Bio Project