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Dateline: Cincinnati
Bobby Cox and Ted Turner were three years apart in age and died three days apart.
Cox was a player and manager. Turner was an entrepreneur ahead of his times. Turner was born in Cincinnati.
Cox, who passed away on Saturday (050926) at the age of 84, was a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His family moved to California and he graduated from Selma High School in Selma, California, near Fresno.
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The infielder was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1959, picked up on waivers by the Chicago Cubs, traded to the Atlanta Braves and finally traded to the New York Yankees. He made his debut with the Yankees on April 14, 1968. He played 132 games for the Yankees as a third baseman, hitting .229 with seven home runs. He played 85 games with them in 1969, hitting .215 with two home runs. He was a teammate of Micky Mantle and played under Ralph Houck.
The Yankees hired Cox to manage in their minot league system in 1971.
Cox took two turns as manager of the Atlanta Braves from 1978 through 1981. Cox replaced Dave Bristol, who was fired with a 60-100 record in 1977. Turner himself managed one game and Vern Ruhle finished the season. He had one winning season with the Braves, an 81-80 record in 1980.
Ted Turner brought him back to the Braves after four season as the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays to be the team's general manager. He drafted Hall of Fame third baseman, Larry (Chipper) Jones. He traded a veteran Doyle Alexander for a promising minor league pitcher, John Smaltz, who is also a Hall of Famer.
Cox led the Blue Jays to a playoff berth in 1985 finishing on top of the American League East with a 99-62 record. It was after that season that Turner hired Cox. When Russ Nixon got off to a 25-40 start. Cox came out of the front office to take over. The Braves were 40-57 under Cox.
In his first full season at the helm, Cox started a string of 14 consecutive division championships in complete seasons. (1994 strike shortened season finished second). The Braves won pennants in 1991 and 1992, the World Series in 1995. They followed up with pennants in 1996 and 1999.
Cox managed the Braves to 100 wins or more in six seasons, including three in a row from 1997 thru 1999. The 1998 team won 106 games. He finished with 2,504 wins as a manager in 29 seasons, good for fourth on the all-time list.
Reds manager Terry Francona remembered Cox when the two were rivals during Francona's first shot at managing the Philadelphia Phillies.
"It must have been my first year," Francona recalled. "They like F, I mean GD, F beating us. We were out on the field and I asked, 'can I talk to you tomorrow'. He said come on over. I sat in his office. I was in full uni (form) and he was smoking a cigar. He had shorts on, working a cross-word puzzle. I said, 'I'm not sure I'm doing this right. I'm kind of worried.' He said, 'let me ask you a quetion. How many times have you seen me make a trip to the mound this series?' I said,'I can't remeber you making a trip.' He said, 'You're pitching stinks. We both laughed. He told me do the best you can with what you've got. You'll be alright. I've been through it. Now I can sit here and do my puzzle and watch Glavine and Maddux."
Cox, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine were all inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in 2014. The pitcher Cox brought to the Braves through trade, Smoltz, was inducted in 2015. Chipper Jones was elected to it in 2018.
Cox was a people person.
“You know how you hear people talk about him. We weren’t best friends. I respected the hell out of him, I just didn’t know him that well. The year I was with ESPN we had gone through there, the year they were at Disney. He was a little older and was a special assistant by then. I didn’t see him. He found out o was there and he jumped in a golf cart and came out to our truck just to say hello. That meant a lot.”
Houston Astros manager, Joe Espada, heard the news.
“I met Bobby Cox when I was coaching with the Marlins,” Espada said. “I had a chance to listen to stories from Chipper (Jones) and those guys about how intense, how good of a teacher he was. How winning was so important when you did it the right way. I heard how he brought people together. He was one of the greatest managers in the history of this game. My best wishes to his family. We lost a really good one. One of the best.”
When the well respected pitching coach of the Braves, Lee Mazzone, left for the Baltimore Orioles in 2005, Cox hired Colerain High School graduate, Roger McDowell as his pitching coach.
Ted Turner was born in Cincinnati but his father moved his billboard sign business to Atlanta.
Turner was an astute entrepreneur who saw the advantage of the emerging cable TV business. He bought a low power UHF station WTBS and took advantage of emerging FCC rules allowing stations to send signals to the cable companies.
Next he bought the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks to provide programming and build a nationwide following for both teams.
In the 80’s the Braves were known as America’s team. Major League Baseball felt that the sport would be cheapened by such mass exposure but Turner should be credited partly for resurgence in the popularity of baseball.
The Braves struggled in the standings in spite of its vast new audience. Turner brought Bobby Cox back from Toronto and made him general manager.
Turner was right again. Cox through astute drafting and trades built a core of young players, with three Hall of Fame pitchers plus Chipper Jones, Cincinnati native David Justice, Fred McGriff and Dale Murphy. Then midway through the 1990 season, Cox came out of the front office and replaced Cincinnati native, Russ Nixon as the on field manager.
He started against the Houston Astros on Friday and gave up four runs on five hits and a walk in 5 1/3 innings and took the loss in the Astros 10-0 win. 