From his spot at table No. 6, fittingly, at the Omni Hotel, former Braves manager Bobby Cox could sit back and enjoy being honored at his Braves Hall of Fame induction, and laugh at the stories flying.
He didn’t have a game to manage, just his No. 6 to be retired Friday night, only the eighth Braves number to go up on the Turner Field façade, along with Jackie Robinson’s 42.
“I was fine until they took the curtain off the No. 6,” Cox told the Turner Field crowd Friday night, after blinking back tears during the unveiling.
At the luncheon Friday afternoon, Cox took in a question-and-answer with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, speeches by David Justice and Chipper Jones, and a story was told of when both Cox and Smoltz were ejected by umpire Hunter Wendelstedt in 1998.
Smoltz told the story about the day in Cincinnati when he argued a call at third base after Bret Boone had over-slid the base and Jones tagged him out, but Boone was called safe. Smoltz got ejected after some contact — he said Wendelstedt stepped on his toe — and Cox told Smoltz to go back to the mound and stay there.
Jones said Cox “waddled out” and got into it with Wendelstedt, the rookie umpire and son of veteran NL umpire Harry Wendelstedt.
“All of a sudden there was a little break,” Jones said. “Bobby said this and I’ll never forget it: ‘Hunter, you wouldn’t make a pimple on your dad’s [expletive].’”
That drew the biggest laugh of the luncheon, until Jones described later in the game seeing Cox sitting on a stool downstairs from the dugout, looking like “a 10-year-old in timeout.”
The all-time ejections leader with 158 is normally guarded about his ejections. But Friday, a day he said “the family and I will never forget,” Cox even added his own twist in an interview after the luncheon.
“I went to Ed Montague, the crew chief, and I said Ed, ‘You don’t understand what went on here, we don’t have any pitching out there and you guys run my pitcher and it was an accident,’” Cox said. “And he said, ‘Bobby would you please tell Smoltzie to leave.’ I said ‘I’m not going to do it.’ ‘Please, Bobby.’ I said, ‘OK, we’ll get somebody out.’”
McCann begins rehab
Brian McCann was set to begin his minor league rehabilitation Friday night in Triple-A Gwinnett, one the Braves hope will be short.
McCann was eligible to come off the disabled list for a strained left oblique Friday but played the first of two games in Gwinnett with an eye toward returning as early as Sunday.
“If he’s good, he’ll maybe go Sunday,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “Sunday at the earliest.”
McCann was scheduled to DH Friday and catch on Saturday.
“Swinging is not the problem, it’s when he’s throwing, at the end,” Gonzalez said. “But he threw pretty good in Miami. It had gotten better every day.”
Inside Uggla’s streak
Dan Uggla extended his hitting streak to 32 games Friday with a home run to pass Rico Carty (31) for the longest in Atlanta history and one of the five longest by a second baseman in major league history.
Uggla’s streak is the 13th of 30 or more games since 1990. Only three went beyond 32 games — Jimmy Rollins’ 38-game streak that bridged the 2005-06 seasons for the Phillies, Luis Castillo’s 35-game streak in 2002 for the Marlins, and Chase Utley’s 35-game streak in 2006 for the Phillies. Castillo and Utley are second basemen.
No hitting streak in recent memory featured as dramatic a change in performance as the one by Uggla, who hit .173 before his streak began July 5. He hit .355 (44-for-124) with 12 homers, 29 RBIs and a .409 OBP during his streak before Friday. He had identical totals for homers and RBIs in his previous 86 games.
About the Author
