Atlanta Braves Top Franchise Managers– #2 Bobby Cox

The Atlanta Braves manager at number two on the list is undeniably the best manager since the team moved from Boston to Atlanta via Milwaukee.

I suspect Atlanta Braves fans and most Milwaukee Braves fans who followed the team south expected Bobby Cox to top the list. After all, Cox’s 21-year run in his second shot as Atlanta manager ties him with Tommy Lasorda for the fourth longest stay as a manager in baseball history.

However, there are other considerations, as you’ll see when we publish number one on the list.

Bobby the boy

Robert Joe “Bobby” Cox was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 21, 1941. His family moved to California in 1944 and settled in the San Joaquin Valley, where he attended Selma High School and, according to his SABR biography, became a Cardinals fan watching their minor league team in Fresno.

“I became a huge Cardinals fan and I can remember as a little kid cutting out the newspaper Stan Musial pictures. My idol growing up was Stan Musial.”

Cox was a three-sport athlete in high school and for Reedley Junior College but dreamed of becoming a Major League player and later a football coach.

Baseball Dream Realized

The Dodgers signed Cox in 1959 and paid a $40K bonus for the privilege. Cox. He remained in the Dodger system through 1964, when the Cubs selected him in the minor-league draft. The Cubs traded him to the newly minted Atlanta Braves in 1966, and the Braves swapped sent him to the Yankees after the 1967 season.

Most of us remember Bobby as a manager with creaking knees, but over his eight minor league seasons, he was a good-looking prospect, batting a combined .279/.360/.457/.817, including 198 doubles, 39 triples, 116 homers, and stole 79 bases in 99 attempts.

The Yankees brought him up in 1968 and gave him a chance to play alongside fellow Oklahoman Mickey Mantle. He later told Charles Bethea of Atlantic Magazine it was the thrill of his life.

. . . that was Mickey Mantle’s last year. I couldn’t wait to meet him (played) alongside Mickey — that was a big thrill. Mantle . . . tried to help me as much as he could. … (asked for) his most memorable moment with Mantle. . .Cox said, “We turned a triple play, the last triple play the Yankees had. Mickey was playing first.”

Knee injuries and illness forced him out of the game after the 1970 season.

Cox Becomes a Manager

When Yankees director of player personnel Lee McPhail heard Cox was retiring, he offered him a job managing Low-A Fort Lauderdale. A winning record there earned him a promotion to AA in 1972, where he repeated his success, and the Yankees promoted him again, this time to AAA Syracuse.

Cox produced a winning season in each of his four seasons at Syracuse and won the IL championship in 1976. He ended his six years managing in the minors with a 459-317 record - .591W-l%. In 1977 he acted as first base coach for Billy Martin with the infamous Bronx Zoo group that won the World Series.

Meanwhile, the 1977 Atlanta Braves posted the worst record in the NL. Ted Turner fired Dave Bristol and hired Bobby.

Atlanta Braves – Round One

Coming out of the Yankees system and the Bronx Zoo, Cox wanted to set the tone quickly.
Every spring training, he handed down six rules:

1. No beards.

2. No uniform pants covering the shoe tops.

3. Dress code.

4. Mind the curfew.

5. Be on time.

6. Play hard at all times.


Eddie Perez spoke years later about Cox's impact on him and his career.

“He taught me to not only be dressed good (at the ballpark), but dress good outside. … (Cox) said, ‘We’ve got to dress nice. There’s people around. We have to look like a professional player.’” Cory McCartney, Tales from the Atlanta Braves Dugout (New York: Sports Publishing, 2016), 164.

Cox inherited a team with weak defense and little offense. In 1980 the perennial losers moved up to finish fourth. He knew he needed the best coaches available and hired Don Baylor, Pat Corales, and Jimy Williams to fill out his coaching staff.

Defense improved, but the team continued to struggle at the plate, and at the end of the season, Turner replaced him with Joe Torre.

Toronto

Cox wasn’t out of work long. His reputation for turning young players into finished major leaguers led Pat Gillick to hire Cox. The Blue Jays were the youngest team in the league and, like the Atlanta Braves when Cox arrived, stuck in last place.

After finishing last in 1982, the Jays slowly climbed the standings, finishing fourth in 1983, second in 1984, and winning the division in 1985, a run that raised attendance from 10th in the AL to second and earned Cox the AL Manager of the Year Award.

After the season, Ted Turner called, congratulated him on the award, apologized for firing him, and offered to make him GM.

Atlanta Braves GM

Cox took the reins of a team that started slipping after Torre’s departure and knew his priorities were pitching and defense. Dan Schlossberg quoted Cox’s brutal assessment in his book When the Braves Ruled the Diamond (New York: Sports Publishing, 2016.)

“In order to have great pitching, you’ve got to have great defense. We just didn’t. … our defense was horrendous, not good at all.”

Cox and Paul Snyder created a plan based on drafting and player development. He leaned heavily on his scouts and signed the players they recommended.

. . . We spent all of our money drafting players. We didn’t want to lose anybody. If a scout wanted somebody, we signed them. That really got the foundation going and all that had to do with Paul Snyder, our scouting director . . . YouTube Hall of Fame interview, 7:25- 7:56

The Braves were improving each year, but the GM thought a new manager might improve the team’s chances, so 65 games into the 1990 season, Cox fired Russ Nixon and hired himself. The Braves finished last after Cox took charge in 1990, a place the club never visited again while he was in charge.

Streak Trivia

The story of the Atlanta Braves streak is well documented by better writers and videos available free online, but a few less publicized things are worthy of note because they relate to Cox as a manager.

• During the streak, the Atlanta Braves had one manager, the other 29 teams had 149. Cox managed 272 different players, including 144 pitchers.
• The only player with the organization from start to finish was John Smoltz. Javy Lopez was there for the final 13 seasons.
• The only player with the organization from start to finish was John Smoltz. Javy Lopez was there for the final 13 seasons.
• The Braves played 2362 regular season games during the streak, Mark Lemke’s 906 ranks fourth on the list of players involved, behind Chipper, Andruw Jones, and Lopez.
• 144 pitchers appeared, only five started 160 or more games, Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz, Avery, and Millwood.
  

I Quit

Frank Wren was a micromanager who eventually drove many talented people out of the origination. The first to get fed up with him was Bobby Cox.

After suffering significant financial losses in 2003, Time Warner tightened the purse strings, preventing the Braves from retaining their best players and adding new talent.

The club slipped to a third-place finish in 2006, and despite a strong start in 2007, once again finished third. John Schuerholz stepped down, and Wren took over as GM; it didn’t take long for the relationship between the micromanaging Wren and Cox to deteriorate.

Cox had always consulted with Schuerholz, but Wren didn’t consult. Instead, he began inserting himself into every facet of the way the team was coached and managed.

Early in Spring Training 2008, Cox called Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, Tim Hudson, and Jeff Francoeur to his office to give them some news.

I just wanted you guys to hear this from me before you hear it from someone else, I quit yesterday . . . I drove halfway (from Orlando) to Georgia, and Schuerholz called me and talked me back down. I can’t work with Frank Wren, Can’t do it.” Chipper Jones, Carroll Rogers Walton, Ballplayer. (Dutton, 2017) 303

In 2009, Cox reflected on his relationship with Schuerholz. His words in this quote from his SABR bio give insight into that day in 2008.

“It’s as good a relationship as there could possibly be in sports, . . . John runs everything by me. I’m involved in everything that John wants to do. Some GMs don’t operate that way anymore. I respect him a great deal. I think he respects my knowledge of what we should do: what trades, free agents, and my reasons for and against some of those.”