In tribute to Bobby Cox and Ted Turner, Braves honor those who ‘make this brand special’

ATLANTA – As the afternoon settled over Truist Park, a blanket of gray clouds hung low across the Atlanta sky. Adjacent to the ballpark at The Battery a memorial honored Bobby Cox and Ted Turner, two of the most influential figures throughout the city’s history with the franchise. They died last week, within days of each other, while the team they loved was on a three-city road trip.

Both had different backgrounds, but brought scores of people together. One in their orbit was Terry McGuirk, who worked closely with Cox while transitioning into the role of Braves chairman and with Turner at TBS. When he spoke to members of the media who gathered for the team’s first home game since his mentors’ deaths, his eyes became teary.

McGuirk reached into a gift bag, and pulled out the iconic Braves hat. He turned it around to display Cox’s No. 6 stitched on the back of the cap, where it will be for the rest of the season.

“Bobby would be proud to have his number on the back (of the hat),” McGuirk said with a smile, even while his voice trembled.

He reached into the same bag and pulled out something that captured the fearless resilience Cox has long been venerated for.

In 2019, while in the middle of signing baseballs, Cox suffered a stroke. As he collapsed, the baseballs and pen scattered to the floor around him.

In a story that has since become part of Braves lore, Cox managed to crawl to a neighbor’s house, where a life-saving call was made on his behalf.

To the naked eye, the baseball looked ordinary: Cox’s signature, his No. 6 and “HOF 2014” written neatly in black ink. But it was anything but ordinary.

It was the final baseball the Hall of Fame manager ever signed.

“Most people wouldn’t have made it out of that room,” McGuirk said. “Bobby Cox did.”

Cox did a lot of things in life. The kid who grew up in Selma — in the heart of California’s Central Valley, where grapes, raisins and nuts are grown — Cox became the key cultivator of a new crop of Braves, many of whom would shape the Atlanta club for generations.

To fans, Cox was the fearless leader who guided Atlanta to its first major professional sports championship in 1995, doing it on a national stage through Turner’s eponymous TBS broadcasts that reached homes across the country. He was also remembered for his cartoonish crashouts and the 141 times umpires ejected him during his Braves tenure.

Despite his fiery nature, Cox always respected the franchise. He required his teams to take batting practice in full uniform, and that no one put sunglasses on the brim of his cap — because it would block the A.

And that tradition isn’t changing anytime soon.

“We’re going to continue to respect that and honor it,” manager Walt Weiss said. “In the way we wear the uniform and the way that we respect the brand. … A lot of people have worked hard to make this brand special. And Bobby is at the forefront of that.”

But behind clubhouse doors, he loomed even larger.

Cox always put people before the game. The man could walk into any ballpark in the league and know the names of the clubhouse attendants, stadium workers and staff members who often go unnoticed.

“I wish everybody in the game could either play with or work for Bobby for at least one year,” Weiss said. “Just to see how it’s supposed to be done. He was a different type of leader and person the way he treated people.”

The same was said about Turner. The founder of the TBS superstation, he made the Braves America’s team by ensuring anyone — whether down the street from Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, or inside a cabin in the mountains of Montana — could watch the team he purchased as a young and scrappy businessman in the mid-1970s.

But Turner also made himself accessible to the people he employed.

“Everyone wanted to work for Ted,” said McGuirk, who worked closely with Turner across his 35 years at TBS. “When we had 20,000 employees, if you asked somebody in London who they worked for, it wasn’t their boss. It was Ted Turner.”

As game time approached, fans filled the stands and more tributes began.

A video played on the board for the revered duo, and as the crowd stood for a moment of silence in honor of Cox and Turner, the sound of bagpipes playing “Auld Lang Syne” echoed throughout the ballpark.

Whether from heaven or some kind of afterlife, somewhere and somehow, the spirits of Cox and Turner presided Tuesday — just as they will for a time to come.