Major League Baseball

Manager's stellar career comes to close;BOBBY COX

Published Oct. 12, 2010 10:09 a.m. ET

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ATLANTA - After the last out Monday night and before the Giants' Champagne-and-beer celebration, came the tribute.

The Giants hugged one another on the field, then stayed on the field a few moments to join the crowd in applauding the Atlanta Braves' manager, Bobby Cox.

"You had to stay out there and give him his love," Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff said.

"I saw them," Cox said, "and I gave them a thumbs-up, too. ... That was nice, a nice gesture by the Giants."

Monday's game was the end of the line for Cox. He's 69 and announced last year that 2010 would be his final season.

This was his 29th season as a big-league manager, his 25th as leader of the Braves. How did he do? Between 1991 and 2005, the Braves made the playoffs 14 times in 14 seasons.

He earned a rep for being a crafty, crusty, feisty skipper who wasn't afraid to make moves, wasn't afraid to speak his mind and didn't often get out-managed.

Cox might have wanted a mulligan on a couple of his moves Monday. He went to the mound in the seventh to pull his starter, Derek Lowe, with runners on first and second and one out. Once Cox walks to the mound and claps his hands, that means the starter is done for the game.

Lowe took a death grip on the ball and talked Cox into letting him face another hitter. Cox possibly walked off the mound saying, "Take me home, Lowe." Lowe walked Pat Burrell, and two runs eventually would score.

But that's Bobby - a man unafraid to make a move and a man willing to listen to a player's heart.

"He has a pitcher's back like no other manager I've ever seen," Lowe had said before the game.

Cox, who grew up in California's Central Valley and attended Selma High, earned the reputation as one of the greatest managers of all time.

He was old-school, the type of guy who liked to talk and argue ball with writers, the kind of manager who arrived at the ballpark around noon for a 7 p.m. game, because that's where a manager belongs.

After the game, Cox gave the Giants a nod and said, "I love Bruce Bochy. He's one of the best guys in baseball. If we couldn't win, I'm glad he did."

Bochy returned the love.

"You know," the Giants' manager said, "it gets emotional for me. I revere this man so much, what he's accomplished in this game. It's going to be strange coming in here and not seeing Bobby on the other side.

"You know, he took me to my first All-Star Game as a coach. He's a man I've looked up to, not just how he manages the game, but his team, how professional they are. ... They play the game right. There is no phony substance to them, they just play baseball.

"This year, it's really remarkable what he did. ... I'm going to miss him. I'm going to miss this man because I venerate him so much."

During one pregame news conference during the series, Cox was asked what part of his job, what part of baseball life, he will miss most, and he waxed crustily eloquent:

"All of it."

"He's a man I've looked up to, not just how he manages ... but his team, how professional they are."

Bruce Bochy, on Bobby Cox

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