It was the summer of 2004. The Braves’ dynasty was on fumes. Both Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine were pitching elsewhere, and John Smoltz had reinvented himself as a closer. By late June, the Braves were 6-1/2 games out of first.
“There was starting to be some panic,” recalled Paul Byrd, a pitcher then, a Braves broadcaster now.
But then, Byrd recalled, Smoltz gathered the players and reminded them of one constant amid all the profound turnover: “Don’t forget, we still have No. 6. He’ll get us right.”
“And he did,” Byrd said. By the time No. 6 – the retired number of then-manager Bobby Cox – was done cajoling his guys through every pitch that season, they had won the division by 10 games.
The stories and sentiments that flowed at the Braves’ ballpark Wednesday were not meant to memorialize the man. Cox had suffered a stroke the day before, his condition serious, both his movement and his speech affected, said some in the position to know. He’s 77, and the word “stroke” is chilling. But all who spoke of Cox did so in a voice that was nothing less than hopeful that this tough baseball man – the father figure of the Braves’ best days – could fight his way back.
It’s just that the stories and the sentiments were all any of them had to stand in for a guy who was always around, always a part of the team, even nine years after he managed his last Braves game.
This spring, you could scarcely throw a baseball on the back fields of the Disney complex without Bobby Cox seeing it. That’s where he loved to roam in his golf cart, checking out every prospect, missing nothing. If he skipped a day of spring training, no one could remember it.
On Monday, the home opener, the game could not start until Cox, on the field, in his jersey, proclaimed, “Play ball!”
And now Wednesday, current Braves manager Brian Snitker was sorely missing one of his favorite pregame rituals. “About 6:20 tonight when I’m normally drinking coffee with (Cox) – there’s a big void,” he said sadly.
It’s like Jeff Francoeur, another former Brave who played for Cox and now is in the broadcast booth, put it, “We just take for granted every time we see Bobby, he’s going to be here at the park. You always know he’s going to be here. And the fact of the matter, he’s 77. Hopefully he lives for a lot longer, but my point is, anything can happen at any time.”
Wednesday was a day to appreciate the constancy of a Bobby Cox on a day he just couldn’t get to the park. It’s like Smoltz said more than a decade ago, you know when Cox is around, everything is just better.
John Schuerholz, the former general manager who formed the perfect partnership with Cox throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, called the Hall of Fame manager “the heart and soul of the Braves.”
“In the last two decades and a half, he’s been the guy, he’s been the leader, he’s been the motivator, he’s been the competitor,” Schuerholz said.
It was a visibly emotional Snitker – who counts Cox as both a best friend and a mentor – who went through his daily media obligation before Wednesday’s game against the Cubs. Like Schuerholz, his day had begun with a visit to the hospital. From one skipper to another, Snitker had tried to joke around with Cox and lighten the mood.
And, then, there was this: “I told him I loved him.”
To hear Snitker talk about his mentor – “When you spend a lot of time with somebody, when you watch somebody do it right, that’s a good person to model yourself after,” he said – is to know how difficult it was for him to conduct business as usual Wednesday. But that’s what baseball guys do. And in a very real way, Cox was still represented in the manager working the dugout Wednesday.
But the thought of him not being physically around the Braves for any time was just a bit jarring. It’s unclear which is the most omnipresent figure around here, the Cox statue near the first-base gate of SunTrust Park, or the man himself.
Freddie Freeman got to work for Cox for only 20 games in 2010, but that was long enough to learn this about the most positive of leaders: “He makes you forget how hard baseball is sometimes.” So, every day, whenever he saw Cox, he made a point to engage the former manager. Why wouldn’t you?
“It’s going to be weird not having him around while he’s recovering,” Freeman said. “Hopefully he recovers quickly so he can be walking around here again.”
“For me it was scary,” said Francoeur, the hometown Brave. “In the 25 years that I’ve really known what was going on with Braves baseball, to me, he is the Braves, he is the guy.”
As manager, Cox was one of the most relentlessly competitive people ever to work in this or any town. He is, as Schuerholz said, “a 100 percenter in terms of loving baseball.” That is a man and a spirit you just want around the ballpark as much as possible.
“When umpire says play ball, I’ve never seen a guy come alive from first pitch in spring training to the last pitch in the playoffs like him,” Snitker said. “He’d try to win every pitch. That’s why he’s in the Hall of Fame.”
That is exactly the attitude everyone was banking on Wednesday night.
