Bobby Cox

Throughout his career, Bobby Cox never got the fame that every coach wants. He did his job and never complained about it. With all the criticism that he has gotten over the years he still puts together a well organized and in the most part well behaved team in baseball. Starting off as a player himself, he will always be remembered as one of the best managers of all time.

He was born on May 21 in 1941 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Attended a high school and junior college in California. His professional career started out in the Dodgers farm system for seven years. In 1966, he was acquired by the Atlanta Braves. He spent 1967 at the Richmond farm team but then traded to the New York Yankees in 1968 gaining the third base position. In his first year of play, he made the Topp’s Rookie All-Start team. In the next year, he lost his position to Bob Murcer in 1969. Cox then ended his career at the age of 30 due to bad knees and began to coach.

Cox was appointed the managing job of the Yankees Class A team in Fort Lauderdale in 1971. Within all of his 6 seasons, not one of his teams finished lower than fourth. He continued with the Yankees system until 1978. He ended up with winning the Eastern League pennant and championship with the club in West Haven in ’72 and with the Syracuse club won the International League’s Governor’s Cup in ’76. His last year with the Yankees he was the first base coach before going to manage the Braves.

In Atlanta Cox stayed for 3 years, 1978 to 1981. He built the Braves up to be replaced before he could take them to the 1982 National League West title. His next endeavor was to bring a team up basically from the ground.

In 1982, Cox was given four years to manage at Toronto. He was given the task of building a winner out of the returning last place team. His first season, he coached them to gain their best record since the Blue Jays birth. It was only a mere 78 wins to 84 losses but it was still a big accomplishment. The next two following seasons, Toronto still improved their record to a winning one with 89 wins to 73 losses which gave them seventh place. With one more win would have given the team a 1985 World Series first.

From Toronto, Cox returned to Atlanta. In October of 1985, he was the General Manager with lots of different responsibilities. This time around he was to supervise a farm team giving us some of our superstars today. Also, accumulating the right to manage the field starting in June of ’90. John Schuerholz was then given the General Manager spot in October of ’90. Since then Bobby Cox has been the field manager for the best team of the nineties.

The Braves went from worst to first and have even brought Brave fans a desired World Championship. Throughout his ten-year stay with the famed Atlanta team he’s won eight straight Division titles with the exception of 1994 because of the baseball strike. They’ve also been in 5 World Series but only came out with one win. In 1992 he lost in the World Series to none other than the Toronto Blue Jays. His post-season record of 43 to 36 and a .544 winning percentage. That gives Bobby Cox the most wins in the post season by a manager. He has more wins than such great managers as Casey Stengel and Tommy Lasorda. Yet still, he has only been recognized once as a tremendous manager. He won National League Manger of The Year in 1991.

So far in Atlanta, Cox has racked up a record of 957 wins and 797 losses equaling out to a .543 winning percentage. On June 17 in 1997 he gained his 900th National League victory. The Braves have won more games than any other team in the major leagues in the past decade, which makes Cox the winningest Braves manager of all time.

All the wins do not make Bobby Cox a successful coach. Building teams up from the floor accounts for some of