Ben’s Sports Take: Bobby Cox isn’t the Braves manager anymore?
What am I supposed to do now?
As I awaited the start of Bobby Cox’s farewell address to the media inside the auxiliary clubhouse at Turner Field yesterday afternoon, I kept asking myself the same question: “How’s he going to do it?”
It wasn’t a curiosity about what he was going to say his favorite moment was or what he’s going to miss most, I was wondering how he planned to announce his return for a 26th season as Braves manager.
In this day and age of reneged retirements and habitual self-promotion (cough) Brett Favre and Lebron James (cough) how could we really take Cox at his word when he announced in September of last year that he was going to hang up his No. 6 jersey after the 2010 season?
As we drew closer to the end of the baseball year, I fully expected to flip on the tube to find out that he had decided to stay another year because winning is too hard to walk away from.
That’s the reason why he announced his retirement in the first place, right?
After going to the postseason 14 straight years, the Braves missed out on the October fun from 2006-09 and surely Cox had lost interest. So, just as the Braves’ fourth consecutive season of playoff-less baseball had ended, Cox decided to announce his retirement plans to the surprise of few people familiar with the organization and Cox himself.
He was 68 years old at the time and had already accomplished everything you could as a Major League manager—seemed like perfect timing.