Budd Bailey brings Buffalo sports into focus

Article and Photo by Karen Carr Keefe

Senior Contributing Writer

Buffalo sports fans have a narrator who tells it like it is.

If you want to know about players, statistics and the history of Buffalo’s professional teams, local author Budd Bailey is your go-to guy.

Bailey gave a talk at the Grand Island Memorial Library on Jan. 4 as part of the book tour for his latest release, “Buffalo Bills: An Illustrated Timeline of a Storied Team.” He co-authored the book with Greg D. Tranter.

The author of 15 books in the past two decades – three of them in the past year – Bailey’s topics span the gamut, from the Buffalo Braves NBA basketball team of the 1970s, to the Bills, Sabres and Bandits of today. He also has written about national sports and history.

Some of the other titles are: “Rayzor’s Edge: Rob Ray’s Tough Life on the Ice,” written with former Sabre Rob Ray; “Today in Buffalo Sports History”; and “Jackie Robinson: Breaking Baseball’s Color Barrier.”

Bailey speaks with a fluency about sports that few could rival, peppering his book talks with funny, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and little-known facts. His role as a sports raconteur is drawn from a decades-long print and broadcast journalism career.

 Bailey was eager to field questions after introductory remarks that were informative, while also drawing chuckles of appreciation from his audience.

“I want questions about any aspect of sports,” he said. “I moved here in 1970, and I’ve certainly written about (sports) before and after that over the past 50-plus years, and I’ve got all sorts of stories if you hit the right buttons.”

Bailey made it clear he’s a journalist by profession, not a cheerleader for the teams.

He has given a series of talks at senior centers through University Express with colleague Stu Boyer, who used to work in sports at WGRZ-TV Channel 2, and graduated from Syracuse University with Bailey in 1977.

“We have a lot of fun,” he said. But as he describes it, they don’t pull any punches when they answer the wide range of questions they field from the attendees at their talks.

“The one rule is that anybody has any questions about local sports, or sports in general, two-thirds of the answer is ‘money.’ Money drives everything, and it’s always behind every decision that’s ever made in pro sports,” Bailey said.

Bailey is a one-man encyclopedia of hometown professional sports. Armed with his written word, you can turn the pages and immerse yourself in the highs and lows of the teams you love, even when they lose. You might even win a sports trivia contest or a bet with a fellow fan if you can memorize even a small percentage of what Bailey has written over the past 20 years.

His knowledge comes from a storied career that prepared him well for the books that have followed.

A journalist who retired in 2017, Bailey worked for 24 years at the Buffalo News. During that time, he won the Tom Borrelli Award as the National Lacrosse League's media personality of the year in 2011. Prior to that, Bailey was a sports reporter and talk show host at WEBR-AM, from 1978-86, when it was an all-news radio station. He even did a stint in the public relations department of the Sabres. And a post-retirement job has him running the pitch clock for the Buffalo Bisons.

“I believe I still hold the Buffalo record, while I was at WEBR, for covering 134 different sporting events in one year,” he said.

A man in the audience quipped, “Is someone tracking that record?” and Bailey shot back: “I was!”

“I saw every Bills game, every Sabres game, some Stallions games, a lot of Bison games. I think I was living at home, then, and I kept leaving notes saying to my mother, ‘I think I’ll be home Monday for dinner, but that’s about it.’

“We start with one basic fact: That anybody who goes to 134 different sporting events in a year must enjoy sports. I will say that no one that’s ever known me forever … was surprised that I went into sports.”

He tells the story that, at age of 4, he was in a Boston-area hospital to have his tonsils out. Bailey’s grandmother hired a private duty nurse to take care of him – a measure that was not as far out of reach financially as it is today.

“My mother gets a phone call in the middle of the day,” Bailey said. He recalled the conversation going something like this: “Mrs. Bailey, I’m the nurse that’s looking after Budd, and I have a problem. Everything’s fine, but he says he wants to read the Boston Herald. He can read? He’s 4 years old. He can read the sports section?”

Bailey said his mother replied, “He knows everybody in the American League by uniform number,” then added, “Why don’t you go out and get him the paper.”

His knowledge base and love of the games has multiplied from those early days, as he continued his obsession with sports as his chosen profession.

Bailey related an anecdote he included in his Bills book, about renowned Bills coach Marv Levy from the team’s Super Bowl era.

“Marv Levy promised the Bills in about the mid-’90s that, if his team beat the Dolphins that week, he would write a fight song and sing it on his television show the next day. Well, the Bills won, Marv went into his office at home that Sunday night and wrote a fight song, and sang it on his coach’s show on the Empire Sports Network the next day,” Bailey said. “It’s on YouTube. If you have 2-and-a-half minutes to kill sometime, get on your computer and look it up. It’s one of the funniest things ever on television to see Marv kind of stumbling through this song.”

Bailey also comes up with sports analysis from his perspective as a longtime observer and reporter of the world of sports.

In response to a question at the book talk, he compared today’s Bills – with their 13-4 season and current No. 2 seed in the NFL – to that of Bills teams that went to the Super Bowl for four consecutive years, in 1990-93.

“They’re both good, but this Bills team does not have high-end talent like the ’90s teams do,” Bailey said. “How many Hall of Famers are on this roster? All right, Josh Allen has played at a Hall of Fame level this year, and maybe, arguably, before. Who are the quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame from this era’s Super Bowl champions?”

Bailey asked the audience.

“(Kansas City Chiefs’) Patrick) Mahomes,” was the first answer called out.

Bailey responded with likely candidates, “Mahomes is certainly going in. (Tom) Brady is certainly going in. (Eli) Manning is certainly going in. But unless you win that championship, it’s a lot harder to win it,” he said, referring to earning a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Bailey referred to Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins as a having a shot at the Hall of Fame, since he has been selected to be in Pro Bowl games several times.

“Maybe he can keep that level up,” he said.

Bailey cited several 1990s-era Bills players and their coach as inducted into, or worthy of, the Hall of Fame honor, including Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith, Steve Tasker, Kent Hull, Darryl Talley and Levy.

He said there’s currently not that kind of depth and talent on the Bills roster.

“To me, at least, that says Sean McDermott is a heck of a coach,” Bailey said.

Bailey is busy on the Buffalo book talk circuit, but also enjoys traveling the globe with his wife, Jody, in search of adventure in such places as Ecuador, Spain and the Galapagos Islands. They help some nonprofit organizations, see a variety of cultural events, and watch the Mets and Red Sox in their annual pursuit of a World Series title.