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way I could make it was to go ahead and announce it, be done with it, and move on. I feel that I could manage another 10 years but sometimes you can stay in one spot too long. They’ll give it to somebody else to run and hopefully they will enjoy a run like we’ve had.”

He said “we” quite often in his conversations. He never talked negatively to a player or criticized him to the media even when the player was failing to get his job done. He always gave players rave reviews.

I remember a conversation one afternoon about his early days as a manager. He had made the Yankees’ roster as a journeyman player for a couple of years and realized that he was not likely to go much further when the NY General Manager, Lee MacPhail, offered him a job in the Yankee minor league season as a manager. Bobby thought that was the best direction for him to take.

“When I started out, I wanted to treat every player as if he was going to be a major leaguer,” Cox said. “I remember all the managers took their reports to New York and sat down with McPhail to go over the prospects we had on our minor league club. I had all these cards on our players and after giving him glowing reports on each player, Lee said: ‘Bobby I am sensing a trend here. You’ve got every player here rated as a big league prospect. You know that is not likely.’” Bobby then explained that he did believe that if players worked hard, kept their nose clean, and put the team first, then they had a chance to make it in the majors.

Every conversation I had with him, I came away appreciating his positive thinking and admired him for his honesty, integrity, and low-key style. Everybody who knew him considered him a friend.

Fate did not smile on him after retirement. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 2019 as he experienced health problems in his late years. He will leave an indelible mark on the Atlanta Braves with his remarkable record of 14 consecutive division championships, a record that could stand forever.

It is always refreshing to see a person reach a high plateau in life without succumbing to self-aggrandizement. Bobby Cox was such a man.