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Saturday, May 24, 2008
Cox, extension deserve rousing ovation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nothing came easy in Bobby Cox’s life, beginning at the beginning. His childhood years were spent on a farm in the “dust bowl” of Oklahoma, when harsh conditions finally drove his father to pack up the family and head west, a sort of a belated chapter as of “Grapes of Wrath.” In the heart of agricultural country in Selma, Calif., his father found work with the railroad company and dropped anchor. Selma became Bobby’s home from the age of 4, and in his own words, “It was a good life,” in which he established many of the values that he still lives by today.
He spent a year at Reedley Junior College and left when the Dodgers offered him a minor league contract. He rode buses and spent many a night in roadside motels from Reno to Salem to Panama City to Albuquerque, and eventually landed in Richmond. Yes, he was a Braves farmhand for a season, then finally the sun broke through. The Yankees traded a catcher and a pitcher, Bob Tillman and Dale Roberts, for him in 1967. By the time he was 30, after just two seasons with the Yankees, the old knees sent the signal — it was over, and those he walks on today are artificial. He had made an impression, though, and the Yankees gave him a job managing a farm club in Fort Lauderdale, and the only time he has been off the bench since then was when the Braves put him in a suit behind a desk and a name plate that said, “General Manager.”
It’s a strain on the imagination to recall that he once managed the Braves and was fired after four seasons, replaced by Joe Torre. That was the day that Ted Turner, with Cox present at his own firing, was asked who his choice of manager would be, and the bodacious one wryly said, “Bobby Cox.” It would so happen again in mid-season 1990 when Cox returned to the kind of suit he felt most comfortable in, with “Braves” across the chest. Not many managers get second chances, but Bobby turned this tour of duty into a career, and since June 22, 1990, only Bobby Cox has managed the Braves. That, of course, includes those 130-some times he has lost debates with umpires and had to retire to the tunnel.
There is a deep sense of kindness in his face. I have known managers that I feared, managers that I liked, managers that I admired and managers at whose firing I never shed a tear. The first manager I covered as a rookie reporter just out of the Navy Air Corps was 69 years old. He could have bitten the head off a nail. Cox has a habit of treating every newsperson who approaches him with the same sort of courtesy. Oh, I’ve heard snap a time or two, but in situations when most managers would have bitten the head of that nail.
He doesn’t view his players as chattel, rather as compatriots in a cause. If he is unhappy with a player’s performance, he takes it up with the player. It doesn’t become a headline. To be traded to Atlanta is on nearly any player’s wish list. Those who don’t fit in are soon gone. No shrieking tapes or boomboxes in the Braves clubhouse. Players soon learn to respect the unwritten rule of team: What takes place here and what’s said here, stays here. In fact, I’m not even certain that there’s such a caveat posted in the Braves clubhouse. It may be simply understood.
In all these years, I’ve heard Bobby Cox make unpleasantries about only two players, and only one opposing manager. Considering all the swords he has crossed with umpires, it’s amazing he hasn’t amassed a book on those guys. Let it be said, that rarely, if ever, when he is dismissed from the premises is it a personal matter, more in the defense of one of his players.
Since he parted company with his knees, golf is no longer one of his passions. The country place near Adairsville is. And his and Pam’s love of animals. They have a party that has been an annual off-season function raising money for animal care. Good citizenship is more than a card to be carried in the wallet, it’s a habit and tradition with the Coxes. None of us can be sure that signing on to manage the Braves one more year will be the end of it, but it’s a move to be met with a rousing ovation in all corners. My guess is there will be more to follow.
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