Bragan, first manager of Atlanta Braves, dies

Over his 23 seasons as a player, Hank Aaron worked for 13 different managers. He puts Bobby Bragan at the top.

"He was great for young players," Aaron said Friday. "I was one of the players he took under his wing."

Bragan, the first manager in Atlanta Braves history, died Thursday at his home in Fort Worth, Texas. He was 92.

"The thing I remember about him, when he said something to you, he looked you right in the eye," Braves Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro said. "He didn't look anywhere else. I always appreciated that in a manager. When he told you something, he told you face to face."

Bragan became the manager of the Milwaukee Braves in 1963, taking over a roster that included eventual Hall of Famers Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn. He came with the team when it moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta for the 1966 season.

"I told them in Milwaukee that I was leaving, and I got the biggest ovation I ever got," Bragan told the AJC in 2006. "But I'm taking the team with me."

He was fired 111 games into the first season, the last of his seven seasons as a major league manager. He finished with a winning percentage of .481.

Bragan, born in Birmingham, was known as "Mr. Baseball" for his passion for the game and his sunny personality. He is a beloved figure in Fort Worth, where he played and managed in the late 1940s as a minor-leaguer and later retired. Longtime Braves broadcaster Ernie Johnson Sr. noted Bragan always was ready to sing at parties. But he was also not opposed to making his opinions clear to players and umpires.

"He said it like it was," Niekro said. "He wasn't bashful about getting in your face or anybody's face."

Bragan also was witness to another, more substantial, piece of baseball history. In 1947, he was a Brooklyn Dodger when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Bragan initially resisted Robinson, as did other teammates, most of them like Bragan raised in the South. Bragan even sought to be traded rather than play with Robinson.

That changed when the team took a two-week road trip early in the season.

"On those long train rides, that's when I really started to get to know Jackie," Bragan told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2007, the 60th anniversary of Robinson's entry into major league baseball. All of us did, actually. This man was about class, culture and courage. All my prejudices begin to slowly fade.