Columnists around the country shared their remarks about late Baseball HOFer BOBBY COX, who passed away on Saturday at 84. USA TODAY’s Bob Nightengale wrote he “loved” the former longtime Braves manager and “so did every soul who ever met the man.” He wrote there may “not have been more of a beloved manager in the history of the game than Cox.” Nightengale: “Cox had an impact on virtually every single person who walked through the doors of the organization” (USA TODAY, 5/9). Braves manager WALT WEISS spoke on Cox and said, “He was one of the greatest leaders I’ve ever been around. He was the best I’d ever been around at creating loyalty amongst the group because of the way he treated people, the way he encouraged guys” (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 5/10).
HUMBLE GIANT: In Atlanta, Mark Bradley wrote Cox “worked hard to keep himself from being the center of attention.” Cox was “unfailingly loyal” towards his players. Bradley: “If you were an Atlanta Brave, he loved you.” Cox was a “humble man in a high-profile job who managed to control the universal impulse for self-promotion,” and a “cleats guy who took great pride in being able to wear those cleats to work every day” (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 5/9). Bradley in a separate piece wrote it was “impossible to dislike” Cox. He was the “world’s most upbeat human.” He “loved everything about his chosen profession.” Bradley: “Over the years, there were times I felt he was managing me. He gave me more-than-occasional life tips. In 2004, he told me what a mentor had told him: ‘Don’t wait too long to retire or you won’t be able to do anything when you do’” (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 5/9). In N.Y., Bill Madden wrote Cox is “one of the most beloved Atlanta sports figures ever.” He was “eternally humble, quick to shun praise while always crediting his players for his success” (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 5/9).
TRUSTED FIGURE: MLB officer scorer ADAM LIBERMAN, who served as senior media relations coordinator with the Braves from 2000 to 2009, said Cox “was like my grandfather in baseball.” In Cleveland, Marc Bona noted Liberman “saw multiple sides of Cox.” The “tragic pall over the country after the terrorism of 9/11 affected him.” Liberman said, “I remember when we lost … on a big home run by (Mike) Piazza and it was this big drama and New York went nuts.” The Braves-Mets game on Sept. 21 was the first professional sporting event in N.Y. after the attacks. Liberman said, “He said to me it was the only game he didn’t mind losing because he understood what it brought to everybody and the joy to the city and the country” (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 5/9).
NO-NONSENSE: In N.Y., Richard Goldstein wrote apart from the wins-losses column, Cox “set a record for an arcane statistic,” having been ejected from 162 games “long before managerial challenges of most questionable calls could be settled by video replays, avoiding chest-to-chest arguments.” As the umpire BOB DAVIDSON said, “If I was a ballplayer, I’d want to play for Bobby Cox” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/9). THE ATHLETIC’s David O’Brien noted Cox spent the second half of his life in Atlanta, where he became a “cigar-smoking, umpire-berating, fatherly -- and eventually grandfatherly -- Southern sports icon.” Cox was “viewed as the epitome of a players’ manager,” and his players said his 162 ejections were a “testament to always having their backs.” Cox “frowned on managers, coaches and players wearing hooded sweatshirts and other pullover tops in the dugout,” a common practice since the early 2000s. He also “made it a rule that Braves players were not to perch sunglasses on top of the bill of their caps, because it would obstruct the iconic cursive ‘A’ on the front of Braves caps.” To this day, Braves players wearing sunglasses “keep them over their eyes or have them reversed” (THE ATHLETIC, 5/9).
