At the end of this season, a baseball legend in Atlanta will leave the dugout for the final time and enjoy one final cigar in the bowels of Turner Field. Bobby Cox, the Braves future Hall of Fame manager has said that this will be his final season and currently the Braves are trying to send out their skipper with one final trip to the playoffs. After missing the playoffs for four straight seasons, the Braves are making a play for the playoffs with the best record in the majors since early May as well as the National League’s best record as of June 21. A trip to the playoffs may seem huge for a team that has not tasted the postseason since 2005, but Cox managed the Atlanta Braves to the playoffs for a record 14 straight seasons by winning 14 straight division titles. Under Cox the Braves went from worst to first in 1991, reaching the seventh game of the World Series before falling to the Minnesota Twins in extra innings. The Braves returned to the Fall Classic the following season, coming up short against the Toronto Blue Jays. In 1995, Cox managed Atlanta to the city’s championship lone championship with a six-game series win over the Indians, and the Braves ventured back to the World Series the following season before bowing to the Yankees. Cox’s final trip to the World Series came in 1999 as Atlanta once again fell to the New York Yankees. Along the way, Cox has managed more than 4500 games and could finish his career with 2500 wins if the Braves continue to play well.
But how does the Skipper feel about his accomplishments? Good luck getting Bobby Cox to give himself credit. That seemingly isn’t in his nature. “I treat them like I’d want to be treated. I’d want my boss to stand up for me,” Cox said about why he sticks up for his players. Cox is well known for his enthusiasm towards his players, barking out encouragement during the games and giving everyone a pet nickname. After the games Cox is known for taking any and all blame for anything bad and passing along all credit to his players. All of the players tend to agree that Cox is truly a player’s manager. Braves starter Tommy Hanson realizes the importance of sending Cox out on a good note. “When you go out there you obviously want to win the game and go out there and do well, especially with it being Bobby’s last year.”
Cox’s influence is all over the league as well. Numerous former players and bench coaches have ascended to prominent positions around baseball, and many credit Cox for helping them along the way. Ned Yost left Cox to become the manager in Milwaukee before the 2003 season and won over 450 games for the Brewers. Yost recently returned to Turner Field as the manager of the Kansas City Royals and the two embraced outside of the Braves clubhouse and exchanged stories and laughs. Another one of Cox’s former coaches Fredi Gonzalez went head to head with Bobby as the manager of the Florida Marlins. Ozzie Guillen won a World Series title as manager of the Chicago White Sox after spending a few years serving as starting shortstop under Cox in Atlanta. Earlier in the 1990s, Jimy Williams left Cox’s staff to become Boston’s manager and later did battle against Atlanta as Houston’s skipper. Several other former Cox players now serve as hitting or pitching coaches including Terry Pendleton in Atlanta and Randy St. Claire in Florida. All speak glowingly about Cox, especially Cox’s former pitching coach Leo Mazzone, who now works with an Atlanta sports radio station and participates in the Braves radio broadcasts. Current Atlanta pitching coach Roger McDowell said recently that Cox is more than just a great manager. “I’m very lucky to have gotten the opportunity to be on the staff with Bobby Cox as manager and everybody knows how great a manager Bobby Cox is but he’s an even better person.” McDowell has served in Atlanta for five seasons, long enough to realize how special this time has been with the skipper. “I’ve formed a tremendous relationship and good friendship (with Cox) and hopefully we’ll continue that as the years go on.
This season might just be Cox’s finest yet as a manager however. The Braves skipper, who has won several manager-of-the-year awards, is seemingly coaching with a bit more spunk, recently calling for a suicide squeeze in the late innings to beat the Minnesota Twins in a big interleague contest. Less than one week later, Cox called for another squeeze and his club executed the risky move for another run. In his final year Cox seems to have found the managing “fountain of youth.” “We’re very fortunate to have found good players and to have good players,” Cox says, again dismissing that he deserves any credit for the turnaround the team has experienced this season.
Regardless of what anyone says about this year or his recent seasons, there is no denying that Cox will soon be enshrined into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. There may be a shortage of seats with all of his former players that will no doubt want to be there to support and honor their former leader. The bigger win though according to Cox is that soon he will be joined in the Hall by several of his former players. John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Chipper Jones, and Greg Maddux are a few of the names that he helped put into the Hall and it is those players that make him beam with pride. “Hopefully I live long enough to see them in the Hall of Fame,” Cox blushed about his former charges before adding simply a “we’ll see,” in regards to his own bronze bust appearing in Cooperstown.
Whoever follows Bobby Cox in Atlanta will be stepping into a shadow that Phil Bengtson entered in Green Bay, Gene Bartow entered at UCLA and Ray Perkins at Alabama. Vince Lombardi’s successor Bengtson finished his three year stint with a losing record 20-21-1 while Bartow actually had a better winning percentage than John Wooden but couldn’t win the big one in two years on the Bruin bench. Perkins lasted four seasons following Bear Bryant at Alabama, registering the Tide’s first losing season in over 30 years before ducking out for the NFL. The man that takes over for Cox will likely not win fourteen straight division titles, but he will definitely hear nothing but encouragement from Cox, who will stay with the club in an adversarial role. That is just how Cox is, quick with the praise, and if the new manager fails, Cox will likely try and take the blame. It is just Cox’s nature.
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