Thank You, Bobby Cox!

The fall of 1995 was probably the best season of my childhood. My grandfather passed away the previous fall and I had lost my best friend. However, the fall of 1995 made up for almost all of that. My little brother, Casey, was born. I must admit I was not too crazy about the whole idea at first, but it was truly a blessing. Looking back that has to be the best thing that happened that fall, but at the time I felt it was what happened 23 days after my brother's birth.

To this day I do not know who my granddaddy's favorite baseball team was. I am pretty sure it was probably the Yankees, but he knew that I loved the Braves. See, TBS was the only station in Fayetteville, North Carolina that carried baseball and TBS only showed Braves game. Any kid that grew up near me was, by default, a Braves fan. I remember sitting in the living room watching the Braves game and playing "tape ball."

That summer was pretty hard. Things were not the same that summer without my granddaddy. However, Joe Simpson, Pete Van Wieren, Don Sutton and Skip Caray made everything seem normal. That is when I truly began to appreciate the Braves and what they meant to me. Braves games aren't the last connection that I have with him, but it's the one thing I remember most about hanging out with him.

On October 28th, 1995 the Atlanta Braves won the World Series. It seems right. It seems like that set the universe back in place. I had someone else to play with and the Braves, who caused my granddaddy and I such anguish over the previous few years, had won a World Series. That leads me to Bobby Cox, who recently retired from his post as the manager of the Braves. A well placed microphone by TBS allowed us to hear every "Let's go DJ [David Justice]," "Come on Chip [Chipper Jones]," "Easy! Easy! [Yelled to a pitcher running to first]" and the occasional expletive. That is how I learned the game. My grandfather would explain the game and the decisions that Bobby made based on what he was yelling out to the guys. It has been what I have looked forward to most in Braves games ever since.

Thanks to Bobby Cox, I have had a connection with my grandfather that no one else has ever had or could ever have. I thought that connection would last forever. I had no idea that anybody would ever be the manager of the Braves other than Bobby Cox. That was until Monday night when Melky Cabrera grounded out for the third out of the bottom of the ninth and the end of Cox's career. That's when it finally hit me, this is the end of an era. The only memories I have of the Braves involve Bobby Cox in some way. I don't know anything else. I don't want to know anything else. However, that is not the way that Cox would want it.

It was never about him. It has always been about the players, the fans, the organization and the city of Atlanta. Bobby lead us all through the last twenty-plus years. We lived and died with every pitch, but he remained stoic, unless there was a bad call made. It wasn't about the wins and losses for him, but getting the most out of his team that he possibly could. And that team included the fans. He made us want to cheer harder and be louder.