Live from the ballyard: For Bobby Cox, the end really is nigh
He announced his plans to retire more than a year ago, and he and I have talked about it a half-dozen times since. But it didn’t really hit me until after the third game in Philadelphia last week, when the Philly and national writers stopped to shake his hand as they were leaving. Bobby Cox really is going away.
Love him or lampoon him, he has become part of our lives. He has managed the Braves since June 22, 1990, and we pause here to note that Georgia’s football coach on that distant date was Ray Goff, that Georgia’s basketball coach was Hugh Durham and that Juan Antonio Samaranch had not yet announced that the 1996 Summer Olympics were coming to “the city of Atlanta.”
Twenty years in the same job. Fourteen first-place finishes. One World Series title. (And only one, as his critics constantly remind us.) That’s a Hall of Fame resume, but sometimes I wonder if anyone around here can cut through the blather to see it.
It has become locally convenient to credit Bobby Cox for none of the games the Braves win while debiting him for every single loss. Anyone could have managed Glavine and Maddux and Smoltz, goes the line of thinking, except that no team in the history of sports has ever managed itself. (The Cubs had Mark Prior and Kerry Wood a few years ago — how’d those prized young arms turn out?)
And now we hear that Cox is culpable for his final club’s September slide, which again makes me wonder if I’m seeing the same doings as everyone else. With Chipper Jones hurt and Troy Glaus used up and Jair Jurrjens and Kris Medlen hurt and essentially an empty chair playing center field, does this look like a first-place team?
It isn’t Cox who has dragged the Braves down, I submit, but Cox who propped them up — 99 days in first place — so long. A lesser manager wouldn’t have kept this team buoyant after a poor April, but this manager kept believing in guys and tinkering with his lineup until something finally worked, and suddenly it was Memorial Day and the Braves were in first place.
We can and will quibble over his in-game decisions. That’s part of baseball. (As the famous baseball man Rocky Bridges had it: “There are three things the average American male thinks he can do better than anyone else: Build a fire, run a hotel and manage a big-league baseball club.”) I wouldn’t suggest that Cox never errs when it comes to tactics. Every manager does.
But I would suggest a team of such modest means that has conjured up 24 victories in its final at-bat has overcome both credulity and its modest means. I would suggest that these Braves rose so high for so long — and could well make the playoffs even now — because they were managed by a true believer. Who else would have stuck with Glaus into May?
Maybe Cox shouldn’t have bunted with Martin Prado against the Nationals last month. (He got mad at me for asking.) Maybe he should have redone his rotation to match Philly’s Big Three last week. (Although a long post by Eric Seidman on the pay site Baseball Prospectus examined the decision after the fact and reached no conclusion.) Maybe he should have given up on Rick Ankiel sooner. (But didn’t Ankiel drive in both runs in Washington on Sunday?)
OK, enough. The point here isn’t to try to persuade any of the bashers. If the space that awaits Cox in Cooperstown isn’t evidence enough for those folks, nothing will be. Today’s intent is to say that we soon we will be taking our last look at the greatest manager we’ll ever see. And if you’re too busy griping to give him his due, you have my condolences.
With that, I’ll open the floor for questions, comments and the usual Cox counterarguments. It’s overcast at Turner Field at the moment, but I wouldn’t take that as an omen. I have a positive feeling about the Braves this week, and I’ll be obliged if you join me in keeping the good vibrations happenin’, as it were.
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1,048 comments Add your comment
K Brave
September 27th, 2010
7:39 pm
Let’s face it, these clowns that constantly put down the job Bobby has done over all these years just do not have a clue what they are talking about. Seems they must be right and the whole rest of the baseball world including all the pros are just wrong. Go figure.
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:39 pm
No it’s not. A series is a series. You win 3 or 4 games, you win the series. It’s no different than hoops or hockey. Try again.
Mark Bradley
September 27th, 2010
7:39 pm
Saturday is Bobby Cox Day, Mike.
Jesse Stone
September 27th, 2010
7:40 pm
Touche- Any real (not casual) fan would want to watch a competitive team for 15 years over a team that played only 2 meaningful seasons in that time.
Jeff
September 27th, 2010
7:40 pm
Randy — how did Bobby Cox choke when the Braves were 10 back of the Dodgers in July 91?
How did he choke when the Giants went on a wicked tear in 1993 and won 103 games and DIDN’T make the playoffs?
How did he choke when the Braves shut down baseball’s most dangerous offensive team in the 1995 WS?
How did HE choke when Mark Wohlers fell apart in 1996?
How did he choke in taking a MUCH less talented team to the playoffs in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, etc?
And how did HE choke when Chipper, Glaus, Medlen, et all got injured this year? THAT’S what did in the Braves — the team physically hitting a wall. It was NOT managing.
Why are you so hateful to Bobby, Randy? Geez, he helped Atlanta win a world championship!!! You are just a greedy bas**** if you sit there and think of it as ONLY one. It’s one more championship than any OTHER Atlanta team has!!!!!
Mark Bradley
September 27th, 2010
7:41 pm
Squeegeeing the tarp. That’s a positive development.
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:41 pm
You’re right K. That 7.5 game lead. It’s fine to lose that! That wild card lead! Slip sliding away! Who cares. We have all those division titles and they don’t!! I guess only you brag about your division titles to other baseball fans. Loser.
Mark Bradley
September 27th, 2010
7:41 pm
The tarp is being furled.
K Brave
September 27th, 2010
7:42 pm
Jesse, key word is “real” fan. These guys that are whining are clowns.
Jeff
September 27th, 2010
7:42 pm
(By the way, in referring to 1991, I forgot to mention that the Braves came from BEHIND to WIN the division over the Dodgers… people like Randy need reminders of that, since he seems to forget all the Braves success over the last 20 years.)
Mark Bradley
September 27th, 2010
7:42 pm
Is “furled” a word?
Sabre
September 27th, 2010
7:43 pm
I love (not really) the cadence of the “reader comments” from these blogs. They start with valid points, then come the negative nellies, followed by the slanderers. It is a steady ebb and flow…
Jesse Stone
September 27th, 2010
7:43 pm
Randy- you must be Earl’s brother. In basketball, you have fewer variables. There are 5 players on the floor and one player can dominate play and keep the ball in his hands. You can’t do that in baseball.
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:43 pm
Going back 20 years. LOL
1 win in 14 tries. 7 game lead vanished. 10-14 this month.
Lost series against the nats(twice) and pirates and swept by the phillies all in the past 25 days.
CHOKE!
ncdawg
September 27th, 2010
7:43 pm
look in the dictionary beside class,intelligence. integrity, and just a damn good manager and you will see the name of BOBBY COX
Jeff
September 27th, 2010
7:43 pm
K-Brave — you are right.
Apparently, Randy is a baseball expert… I am sure his phone is ringing off the hook, with general managers calling him to figure out how to win 20 straight World Series titles since he has ALL the answers.
Randy = the true loser.
Jesse Stone
September 27th, 2010
7:44 pm
Randy, what is the Phillies record the past month in a half?
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:45 pm
Yeah you’re right. The braves only had 3 hall of famers pitching for 12 years together and in the playoffs. A series is a series and in baseball you only have to win 3 to get the title. Dumba$$
Sabre
September 27th, 2010
7:45 pm
“Furled” is a great word, and you used it correctly! Kudos…
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:46 pm
Much better than the Braves!
Btw, it’s month AND a half. Unless you’re referring to half a month or 15 days
Braves Fan
September 27th, 2010
7:46 pm
The Bobby Cox haters that post here don’t know squat about baseball. Bobby’s induction into the Hall of Fame this will be the proof. I don’t think you will find five baseball people that will say that bad managers make the HOF.
They are just negative people, and may not even be Braves fans – just trolls. If they aren’t here they are on the Falcons blog blabbing about how Matt Ryan is a horrible QB. A good fraction of them are probably Phillies fans or even Mets fans. The rest just have pitiful lives and get their jollies trying to stir people up in sports forums. Very sad, pathetic people.
Jeff
September 27th, 2010
7:46 pm
Hey Randy — Tech fans tell me how great their football team was in the 1920s.
Dodger fans tell me about the Lasorda heyday of the 70s and 80s.
Mets fans still actually talk about the 86 World Series.
Until last season, Bama fans recalled the glory days of Bear Bryant in the 1960s.
So I don’t think Atlanta Braves fans are in any way out of line for celebrating a great, historic 20-year run of success under Cox from 1990 to this year.
I’ll take my division titles and NL pennants and World Series and I’ll be a true fan and be d*** proud of ‘em.
Randy, you go root for a sure winner, like the Nazi regime vs. defenseless Poland in the 40s… seems like you only like dominant winners of that type.
bucky oneil
September 27th, 2010
7:47 pm
I stayed away for awhile. Last week was extremely disappointing. Great article Mark. Bobby Cox is baseball in Atlanta, and will be for some time. These six games are his last and I for one will be very sad to see him go.
I hope that FSSO will find another rain delay program next year. Have seen Brave’s top 25 for the 100th time.
Let’s go Bravos! Play hard and maybe we can make a decent showing for Bobby’s last games.
Larry
September 27th, 2010
7:47 pm
“1-14″ record in the last game–and series–of the postseason. That’s an .067 winning percentage.
John,
Touché! But, as I have learned over the years, our dissenters who think Bobby Cox is a “great” manager suffer from grave cognitive dissonance. They are in laymen terms what are known as social, professional and intellectual laggards and followers and destined to always be employees and never employers, as is the author of this hilarious attempt to paint Bobby Cox as a championship caliber manager.
I wish the world’s finest nostril minor the best in his retirement but I will not allow the nostalgia of the moment’s end to blind me from the convincing and overwhelming evidence that despite Bobby winning the majority of 162 games 14 consecutive times over the like of the Mets, Expos, Marlins and Phillies to quality for the postseason, once there, he was absolutely the worst in-game, strategical, decision making, must win game manager in MLB history. Speaking from pure logic, one MUST be the worst to not get lucky more than once out of 15 chances to win the last series of the postseason.
Sonny Clusters
September 27th, 2010
7:47 pm
We was amused that some fans think they are “real” fans and others aren’t. “Real” fans can be measured by the number of team tattoos they have. We have a tomahawk and a script “A”. Anybody that’s a bigger fan than that would have to have 3 tattoos. Mark doesn’t count.
Jesse Stone
September 27th, 2010
7:47 pm
In basketball and hockey, don’t half the damn teams in the league get in? The first round is a joke. I guess if in the 90’s they let the Expos in the playoffs and the Braves won a 1st round against them, that would defeat your silly little argument? Try again
Mark Bradley
September 27th, 2010
7:47 pm
I checked, Sabre. Thanks.
K Brave
September 27th, 2010
7:48 pm
Phillies have a murderers row of talent this year and the Braves over all talent is pretty much predestrian, yet the Phillies had to go on an unholy tear to catch and pass the Braves. Show me another manager that wins 90+ games with these guys.
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:48 pm
Wrong Braves fan. I think Ryan is a fabulous qb and will do well. I think Bobby is a terrible manager who won division because of hall of fame pitchers and has no clue how to motivate his team or manage his team to win when it’s needed. The proof is this–
You won it all 7% of the time you were in the postseason. Yes you were better than 4 other teams! Woo hoo!
Jeff
September 27th, 2010
7:49 pm
By the way, Randy, sure must be nice to be an expert on all things baseball like you… and not take into account the human element like mistakes, some teams just playing better in a series, etc.
Your “3 hall of famers” argument won’t work, either… those guys couldn’t pitch EVERY DAY. Baseball is a TEAM game that has SO MANY variables… it’s incredibly hard to win ONE World Series, much less several.
Again, I will take mine and be dang proud of it… still have some memorabilia from that 1995 season, and I’ll always cherish that season. You can go back under a rock for all we care.
Mark Bradley
September 27th, 2010
7:49 pm
First pitch: 8:15.
Jesse Stone
September 27th, 2010
7:49 pm
How many HOF position players did the Braves have in those World Series?
Sabre
September 27th, 2010
7:50 pm
Is “sabre” a word? Maybe I should switch to “saber.” Or, perhaps SABR makes more sense, because this is baseball.
Bob Horner
September 27th, 2010
7:50 pm
Mark Bradley has an impressive vocabulary…my wife is from Louisville,KY and she can’t spell horse….or equine for that matter…I blame you MB…
Dawged
September 27th, 2010
7:50 pm
I will never forget the magic season of 91 when my family(like the rest of the city) were united by the worst to first run of the Atlanta Braves and all the years Bobby gave us Braves Fans Pride and Hope.Bless you Bobby. We will miss you.
Brandy
September 27th, 2010
7:50 pm
How do you say goodbye to the only manager that you have ever known? I have been a Braves fan since I was born and I have no idea how to say goodbye. I will be at the game Saturday, and it will be an emotional game! Some part of me believes that the Braves will never be the same, but then again we must move on! Go Braves and Bobby you will be missed!
Jeff
September 27th, 2010
7:50 pm
Thanks Mark!
Jeff
September 27th, 2010
7:51 pm
By the way, Mark, please give Randy’s phone number to Frank Wren… I am SURE he will want to call him since he knows EVERYTHING about baseball.
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:52 pm
I can tell you that 90% of the managers if given the braves lineup from 91-05 would have won more than one world series.
Earl Hickey
September 27th, 2010
7:52 pm
Randy, get the he!! off these blogs. CrabMan and the Daytime Hooker are waiting for you to drive them to work.
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:52 pm
Yes Frank Wren the genius! Those trades have been fabulous haven’t they?
Coach (2011 or Bust)
September 27th, 2010
7:53 pm
Bye bye Bobby, you waited ten years too long. Thanks for wasting an entire decade of my Braves fandom.
bucky oneil
September 27th, 2010
7:53 pm
Did Jeff call Randy a Nazi? Wow!
Road Dog
September 27th, 2010
7:54 pm
You are hopeless Bradley. If you cannot see the flaws in this team, and the flaws in this manager, you are a company man. That is not journalism. That is “drawing a paycheck-ism.” You border on the absurd…
Bravos33
September 27th, 2010
7:55 pm
Alright Mark,
Let’s keep those positive vibes going like you said. I have a question for you too. Since we are going with Hudson and Lowe on 3 days rest Tues. and Wed., what are the chances that Bobby will go with Hanson on 3 days to open with the Phils if we are still triloing, then finishing with Huddy and Lowe AGAIN on 3 days? I know that is asking a lot, and I dont necessarily know if I would do it, but just wondering if you think it is something they may consider.
Coach (2011 or Bust)
September 27th, 2010
7:55 pm
Fifteen playoff teams, one world series?
OVERRATED.
Randy
September 27th, 2010
7:55 pm
What’s wrong? Oh you don’t like being called losers? Well, that’s what this team is.
Nice record against those pesky nats and pirates losers!
Phillies already up on those nats and got nothing to play for as they have the best record locked up! Yet they still beat those pesky nats. Losers.
bucky oneil
September 27th, 2010
7:56 pm
Sabre – It’s french for sword. And you need a big one my friend to cut through some of the stuff on this blog.
Coach (2011 or Bust)
September 27th, 2010
7:57 pm
Blind luck defined: Winning one WS in fifteen trips to the post season.
A definite trend: Coming up short in fourteen years of post season play.
Pete
September 27th, 2010
7:57 pm
During the regular season the worst teams win @40% of the time & the best teams lose @40% of the time. During the playoffs all the teams won @60% during the rgular season but 7 of those teams are not going to win the world series. I think making the playoffs over 162 regular season games is the more severe test of a teams quality. Bobby Cox and Joe Torre are the only two managers to finish in first place 15 times. Bobby Cox is the only manager (or coach of another American team sport team) to finish in first place 11 consecutive times.