Former Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox was one of three men who hired Alex Anthopoulos (Montreal, Que.)

November 3, 2021

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

Dear Robert,

Well, congratulations are in order once again.

Your Atlanta Braves are World Series champs.

Sorry you couldn’t have been in Houston, but your wife Pam told me before Game 5 you have been watching and “how exciting all the games have been.”

It’s been a while -- since Game 6 of the 1995 World Series -- when your Braves last won. I was there that night when Tom Glavine threw eight scoreless and Mark Wohlers pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for a 1-0 win over Cleveland at Fulton-County Stadium.

I don’t remember if you shed tears in the clubhouse that night when the final drop of champagne had been spritzed. You should have -- you had such a part of that one managing your club to 94 wins. And your finger prints were all over this one too. We’ve read that you’ve only been to Truist Park once since suffering a stroke one day after the Braves’ home opener of the 2019 season.

Braves manager and Hall of Famer Bobby Cox. Photo: John Raoux. AP.

Your dear friend Brian Snitker, a baseball lifer like you, managed with a steady hand. Some said he resembled you -- without the ejections. You had a major role in hiring the upstairs decision maker. I remember the Los Angeles Dodgers losing to the Houston Astros 13-12 in Game 5 of the 2017 World Series. Alex Bregman singled with two outs in the 10th inning on Oct. 29 to send 43,300 Minute Maid Park fans home happy.

That night the Dodgers travelling party headed for the bus, the airport and the charter to the coast. Yet, Dodgers assistant GM Alex Anthopoulos headed for an overnight stay in a hotel. The next day, Braves executives Terry McGuirk and John Hart, plus you, interviewed Anthopoulos for the vacant president’s job.

Alex Anthopoulos from earlier in October.

As soon as we heard of who was interviewing, we knew Anthopoulos would have an excellent chance. Robert, two of your best friends in the game -- Hall of Famer Pat Gillick and president emeritus Paul Beeston from your days with the Toronto Blue Jays -- both had the utmost respect for Anthopoulos’ work ethic and your ability to evaluate.

And Anthopoulos -- the man you helped hire -- would have walked out of Minute Maid Wednesday as the man who put the 2021 World Series cham-PEENS together ... EXCEPT he was at home in Georgia due to COVID protocols. He had been vaccinated but tested positive on Saturday. We’re told he does not have any symptoms.

The Series MVP went to Jorge Soler, whom Anthopoulos acquired from the Kansas City Royals at the deadline for reliever Kasey Kalich (0-2, 3.26 ERA with five saves, 35 strikeouts in 30 1/3 innings at class-A Rome). Anthopoulos also acquired outfielders Eddie Rosario, the National League Championship Series MVP, Adam Duvall and Joc Pederson. Never mind about winning the winter meetings or the off-season, Anthopoulos won the July trade deadline and the World Series, the first Canadian to do so.

* * *

I’ve never told you this Robert, but man you were a tough interview -- not so much the final six weeks of 1985 regular season and the playoffs when I left covering the Montreal Expos to cover the Jays. There were three Toronto papers and two suburban writers covering the team Steve Milton from the Hamilton Spectator and myself from Ottawa.

Years later I’d see you and you’d say “Hey Bobby, how are things in Hamilton?” I think you insulted the debonair Mr. Milton. And then you would proceed down your laundry list of the usual questions ... didn’t matter if we saw each other at Olympic Stadium, Lake Buena Vista, Fla., Fulton County Stadium, Dolphins Stadium (for Carlos Delgado’s debut with the Marlins) or Turner Field.

It would always go like this:

Bobby Cox and Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston during the 1992 World Series

“How’s Cito Gaston doing,” you’d ask. I’d answer.

Then, “What’s up with Paul Beeston?” and then “How has Pat Gillick been? Has he called you lately?”

Next would be “How is Al Ryan from the Star? What about Larry Millson from the Globe and Ken Fidlin from your paper?”

Finally, I’d get aggressive -- you know how pushy I can get Robert -- and ask “Can I ask you about your managing ...?” and you’d answer “Ahhhh ... c’mon I didn’t do anything. The players did it all.”

One spring I saw a man you knew real well -- a veteran Atlanta scribe -- enter your office and explain how his office had DEMANDED a story on your chances of making the Hall of Fame. It was rough. He tried the same question 20 different ways and you didn’t answer 19 ways. I think I saw him write three lines in his notebook. You wanted zero acclaim. I think it was why your teams always played so hard for you.

As the late great Hall of Fame broadcaster Skip Caray told me one night when I passed him heading downstairs at Turner Field.

“What you writing tonight?”

“The manager.”

“Good luck. Come and see me with your empty notebook when you are done.”

Robert that day you did talk about a pet shelter but not much about baseball. I managed to pry a few words out of John Smoltz and Chipper Jones.

Skip’s words when I returned upstairs “Bobby Cox wants all of the blame and none of the credit. Quite unlike Tommy Lasorda and my father (Harry Caray).”

Jays connections were everywhere in the Series. Your team signed knock-out reliever Tyler Matzek from the Texas AirHogs of the Independent American Association where he was managed by John McLaren in Grand Prairie, Tex. in 2018. Matzek allowed three runs with four walks and 24 strikeouts in 13 2/3 innings.

* * *

As you know this team did it a much, much different way that you and 1995 Braves did.

For Game 4, this year you guys started LHP Dylan Lee, 27, making his first major-league start, and his first start since July 23, 2017 when he was with the class-A Greensboro Grasshoppers. He was facing the Asheville Tourists and allowed three runs in five innings. That’s 1,561 days between starts. Lee, an accidental post-season tourist, had two major-league innings on his major-league belt.

And in Game 5, you guys started LHP Tucker Davidson, 25, on 137 days rest. He had five career starts, -- four this year -- before going down with a forearm strain. His last start was June 15 against the Boston Red Sox when he gave up five runs on a walk and five hits, including home runs by Rafael Devers and Hunter Renfroe. Davidson had pitched 21 1/3 innings.

Looking back you had LHP Steve Avery start Game 4 and Greg Maddux in Game 5. Glavine and Maddux each started twice that series, while Smoltz and Avery had one each.

Glavine, 29 at the time, was a two-time Cy Young award winner and a three-time all-star. After the 1995 season, the lefty had a 124-82 record pitching 1,721 innings.

Maddux, also 29, was a four-time Cy Young winner and a four-time all-star. He was coming off a 19-2 season and he had a 150-93 record pitching 2,120 2/3 innings.

Smoltz, 28, had yet to win his Cy Young award, but he was already a three-time all-star. He was 90-82 in his 1,550 2/3 innings.

Avery, 25, made an all-star team once and had a 65-52 mark in 1,091 1/3 innings.

Man you had a team with Hall of Famers Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz, Chipper Jones, general manager John Schuerholz and your own self.

Your Braves didn’t have a lot of choices after Charlie Morton broke his leg in Game 1 and Mike Soroka (Calgary, Alta.) was lost for the year. So your Braves chose to stick with a rested with Max Fried and Ian Anderson. The other pitchers who started this season were Drew Smyly, Huascar Ynoa, Touki Toussaint, Kyle Muller, Bryse Wilson and Jesse Chavez. For the Series, Ynoa, Toussaint, Muller and Wilson were not on the roster.

* * *

Robert you managed your Braves for 24 seasons -- four years in the late 1970s -- and after taking over from the late, great Russ Nixon, began a 20-year stint from 1991 to 2010. You won 2,149 games, captured five NL pennants and the 1995 World Series.

Counting your Jays days, you won 2,504 games, which ranks fourth overall on all-time managerial wins list behind Connie Mack (3,731 wins), Tony La Russa (2,821) and John McGraw (2,763).

One day in spring training you introduced me to country singer Whisperin Bill Anderson, then you and I were talking and I said “I have to go.”

You asked where. I looked over my shoulder and said “to steal your first baseman.”

“WHAT?”

Just for the World Baseball Classic ... Freddie Freeman’s parents were Canadian.

“Oh ... OK.”

Another day I was there to write about Tom Glavine to ask about the Basic Agreement in 1995 and why steroids were not more of an issue. You told me Glavine was on a back field. You spent as much time watching your team take infield as you did looking for Glavine walking in from right field.

Then, you sent a clubhouse guy inside to see if Glavine had entered the clubhouse by walking under the grandstand and you told him “And don’t let ‘Glav’ leave ... someone important is here to see him.” The clubby came back and said Glavine had just entered the clubhouse. Off I went after thanking you. Those were the good old days.

Am sure it was an emotional night for you Robert, when Joe Buck and John Smoltz paid you a tribute in the ninth, when Terry McGuirk said there were angels upstairs -- the late Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro -- rooting for your team or when Brian Snitker lifted the trophy to the skies.

It certainly was for me, someone who grew up with 8X10 pictures of the Milwaukee Braves taped to my bedroom walls: outfielders Wes Covington, Billy Bruton and Hank Aaron; infielders Joe Adcock, Red Schoendienst, Eddie Mathews and Johnny Logan; catchers Del Crandall and Del Rice, and pitcher Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, Bob Buhl, Joey Jay and Don McMahon.

Elliott: An open letter to Braves' Bobby Cox