The new Bobby Cox? He’s managing the Red Sox
Of Bobby Cox, I’ve maintained — sorry to be quoting my silly self here, but know no way around it — he’s the best manager I’ve ever seen and the best I’ll ever see. But now I’m thinking maybe only the first part applies.
Because Terry Francona has Bobby Cox written all over him, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.
Francona manages the Red Sox, and that’s a job unlike any other in sports. “I don’t think anything prepares you for Boston,” Francona said Saturday, speaking before Game 2 of his team’s series at Turner Field. But then, in almost the same breath, he admitted that maybe something did help ready him for Red Sox Nation.
The Red Sox have and have had a slew of good players in Francona’s five-plus seasons — Manny, Big Papi, Pedro, Beckett, Schilling, Papelbon, Pedroia, even Nomar — but none of them was, is or will ever be the greatest athlete this manager has managed. See, Francona had Michael Jordan.
The year was 1994, and Jordan was a Birmingham Baron. Francona was the manager, and he learned early about the caring and feeding of the mass — and massively hysterical — media. “The situation was kind of unique,” he said. “I had to deal with more media than a minor-league manager is used to. That was good training.”
He laughed. “Before Michael got there, the Birmingham [media] was {two print reporters], and they’d come down and ask a couple of questions and then go eat.”
As for dealing with MJ himself: “There were many people wanting to get at him. I can’t imagine going through that … I was shocked at how someone could handle what he had to handle … I really think he enjoyed being on the bus [Jordan rented a special one for the Barons] and playing dominoes or cards. For those 10 hours, nobody could get at him.”
In Boston, the Sox are Rock Stars, same as Jordan was whenever he roamed. Handling MJ was essentially a pilot film on how to handle the RS and, as Francona said, “You try to learn from everything.”
It helps, too, that he’s a great baseball man. His dad, Tito Francona, was a big-leaguer (and even an Atlanta Brave) of note — the younger Francona is invariably called “Tito” by his players — and Terry had a promising future as a Expo truncated by a knee injury. He managed the Phillies and was fired for no real reason, and in his first four seasons in Boston he twice won the World Series.
He has the Cox touch with his players — he worried about giving outfielder Jason Bay, who hates to sit, Saturday off — but has that Red Sox thing about numbers. (Francona also noted Bay had hit only .167 against Javier Vazquez.) He travels not just with a BlackBerry but with a laptop and a printer. He’s a lifelong baseball man who’s suitably 21st Century.
And that’s what I see Terry “Tito” Francona becoming — the Bobby Cox of the 21st Century. He has in Boston the resources to win for a good long while, the same as Cox did here. And that’s also why, should the Braves ever need a new manager, I’d look first to Brad Mills.
He’s Tito’s bench coach. He was once Tito’s roommate. If Tito is the next Bobby, then maybe Mills is the next Tito.
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107 comments Add your comment
Helluva Engineer
June 29th, 2009
5:06 pm
BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kelly Johnson still sucks.
More to come at 6.
Bill
June 29th, 2009
9:35 pm
Mark said, The best manager I’ve every seem…..Thats Mark’s opinion. He also said he would not hire him for next year…in another post. …..all opinions. Damn this is the USA, can’t a man express himself? Your opinion might be different like mine is but Mark has a right to his.
I’m not a Cox fan and I hope and pray he’s gone ASP. I have no hard feeling for the fans that love BC. I thank BC for the good years but now its time to move on.
Mark did a good job telling about Tito and the Red Sox clubhouse..etc. I too would love to see Brad Mills ,or John Farrell as the next Manager of the Braves. That to is opinion!
Thanks Mark for keeping the natives informed. Hope Frank Wren reads the blogs. Glad I live in USA so I can express my opinion.
TennesseePaul
June 29th, 2009
9:49 pm
“any reasons why Bobby keeps playing a totally inadequate Kelly Johnson at 2nd base…”
Marteen Prado injured his groin. Omar Infante is out with a broken hand. Diory Hernandez is a short stop. Yunel already has issues of his own at SS. KJ, while I dislike him is the default choice.
“why did the greatest manager ever not have Tommy Hanson on the opening day roster?”
Frank Wren makes the roster choices. It was the belief of the organization that he should be in AAA to start. There is also the argument of postponing his debut to save on arbitration years… get him for 6.5 years vs 6 years.
“How can the greatest manager ever have 3 1/2 lackluster losing seasons in a row, and the teams play, just keeps getting worse & worse?”
You speak of the season when four starters, the closer and setup man, and several position players went down with season ending injuries? Or the massive turnover in the front office and coaches. Or the huge influx of new young players?
“Shouldn’t the greatest manager ever be able to teach & motivate his team to where 3 1/2 seasons of subpar baseball doesn’t happen?”
Are you asking every manager to be flawless? After 16 consecutive years of success dating back to the last managing year of the Jays and including the strike shortened ‘94 season, you are upset that a rash of injuries and turn over in the front office has produced some sub standard results for three years?
“I’m thinking just about any run of the mill recycled MLB manager would’ve looked pretty great having Smoltz, Maddux & Glavine in their primes for many many years, along with $$$ to buy position players on a need be basis during that time…”
Sounds like a reason to not be impressed with Torre… Or La Russa with his Pujols, McGwire, Henderson, Eckersly and other Hall of Fame caliber players.
“Looks like that’s maybe what’s happening for Francona in Boston.”
So in summary, no manager is good when they have talented players, and every manager is terrible when the players are terrible… gotcha.
Bradley: Gotta hand it to ya. You’ve hit a hot topic here that has kept the lunatics coming back. But I don’t see the famed Robot in here… only a matter of time I suppose.
Brad
June 30th, 2009
6:20 am
Any average manager should be able to win during the regular season with Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux! How hard is that? Only one World Series out of that many division titles and chances? Clearly Cox was outmatched time and again in the post season. As the Braves made the playoffs over and over and faced teams of similar talent, Cox was clearly out of his element and was beaten much more than he won. Other managers, LaRussa, Jim Leyland, Torre, would have won 3 times more than Cox ever though of! Mark, you usually are good, but this one is way off this time.
Don
June 30th, 2009
9:13 am
It is amazing how Cox supporters and writers pick out isolated things to defend him and ignore the overall situation. Based on the talent, Cox has never had good run producing teams – Why – He does not understand or implement the first absolute essential of run production. It is essential that your hitters work the count – force opposing pitchers to throw a lot of pitches. The Braves are next to last in all of baseball in average number of pitches seen per at bat. Cox has never taught/ emphasized/ demanded this. This guarentees that we have terrible run production and will not be competitive (unless you should again have All Star Pitching so dominate and far far superior to other teams that it overcomes this). Cox also continues to make terrible in game decisions relationg to both offense and pitching. So many times he does exactly what the opposing manager would like to see him do in key situations. So many times he will take an action or lack of action that takes the pressure off the opposing pitcher in situations where he is under pressure or wild or out of sinc. Bobby Cox is just not a very intelligent manager. He does little to emphasize/ teach, force the development of skills in his players. He is a nice man who gets along well with players and was fortunate enough to be the manager when the Braves had All Star Pitching so dominant and far far superior to the other teams and that it overcame his lack of offensive management and lack of management skills and made it almost impossible to lose the Division over the 162 game regular season schedule. If you just look a games from the view of the opposing team -his mistakes and game after game are obvious.
Mitchell
June 30th, 2009
12:02 pm
Again, Mark Bradley, we cannot have a manager named Brad.
Not on my watch.
Also, it must have been nice for Tito’s rock stars to have had the Colorado Rockies, a team who was just happy to be there, for a World Series opponent,
Bobby Cox never got to play a “happy to be there” team.
And when we did face a team who hadn’t been there for a long, long time (Indians), we still had to play against a Hall of Famer in Eddie Murray and three or four potential or possible Hall of Famers in Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel and Kenny Lofton.
Bobby Cox had to deal with Hall of Fame players like Kirby Pucket, Dave Winfield, Wade Boggs, the aforementioned Eddie Murray as well as known steroid users like Roger Clemmens, Andy Pettite and Chuck Knob*ock.
Then of course there are the degenerate low lifes: Jim Leyritz (serving time), Darryl Strawberry and Cecil Fielder (kids won’t talk to them), Kirby Puckett again (sexual assault, indecent exposure), Wade Boggs again (hairpiece)… I could go on. No really, I could.
At least the Red Sox came through for their manager whereas Bobby Cox was made to look like a fool again and again for sticking with guys who should have gotten the out or the big hit but didn’t cause they sucked.
Then again, I’m sure it was tough going up against baby faced Jeff Francis and Troy Toluwitzki.
That’s how I roll Mark Bradley!
Oh yeah, the guy’s only won the AL East once. WTF?
ronald
June 30th, 2009
1:18 pm
Is Bobby Cox the greatest manager of all time? No. Is he one of the worst? No. He is a great manager but certainly not the greatest. Mark, I’d really like to know how you rate Frank Wren as a GM. I believe that is one of the big problems with this team, that and ownership. I don’t think that, so far as ownership goes, we are any better off with Liberty Media than we were with Time Warner/AOL. I may just be me but I have a hard time imagining a Corperation having much passion about a sports team. It’s about time we all admitted that this is just not a great team. An offense ought to be built for either power or speed (i.e. small ball). This team seems to be built for neither. We have little, if any, thunder in the lineup. We have a collection of guys who can hit for decent average. Chipper is not producing as we had hoped. Maybe he’ll come out of this slump he is in. McCann is, well, McCann. He is one of the best hitting catchers in the game. Right field is a real problem. Anyone who says it isn’t simply needs to check the team stats. Escobar has a lot of potential. However, I seriously question whether or not a “players manager” is going to make much of a dent in his thick head (see numurous bone headed plays this season). Diaz, Anderson, Kotchman and McClouth are all decent players. They are not the type of players around which you can build a team. Heck, Tommy Gregg and Ken Oberkfeld were good hitters. You just don’t build a team around them. After last season we knew where the holes were in the batting order. Those holes are still there. There was not a lot of power last year. There is not a lot of power this year. Why was this situation not fixed? The answer to that question is NOT “Bobby Cox.” It is “Frank Wren.”