ATLANTA — So, what do you do if the ballclub you own has just lost 16 games in a row?
If you’re Ted Turner, maverick owner of the Braves and shameless showman, you send your manager, Dave Bristol, on a “scouting trip,” join your team in Pittsburgh and plant yourself in the dugout as manager.
This happened on May 11, 1977. The old guard was appalled. Braves players were amused when Turner showed up with his cap pulled down low, a cigar in his mouth, uniform pants hiked up to his knees, stirrups on backwards.
Almost 59 years to the day after Turner named himself manager, and six days after he died at the age of 87, Cubs manager Craig Counsell offered “Captain Outrageous” a figurative tip of the cap.
“I respect it,” Counsell said. “I mean, I think it’s great. I do. In a lot of ways, I think he probably learned a lot that day.’’
Naturally, someone suggested to Counsell that it was unlikely Cubs owner Tom Ricketts would be calling him with an offer to fill in for a day.
“Would be happy to take a day off,” Counsell cracked.
The Braves lost 2-1 with Turner as their skipper when the Pirates made future Hall of Famer Dave Parker’s third-inning home run off future Hall of Fame Phil Niekro stand up. Citing the “Connie Mack rule,” which states that no one who owns a financial interest in a team can serve as manager, National League president Chub Feeney banned Turner from an encore.
So Turner took an 0-1 record as manager to his grave. The obituaries tended to focus more on his wins: building a media empire with CNN and the TBS “superstation” that carried Braves games into every market; tabbing the Braves as “America’s team”; winning the America’s Cup as a master yachtsman, and his marriage to Jane Fonda.
The game of baseball, it appears, didn’t suffer any lasting damage from his managing stint — or stunt.
The Braves and Cubs lined up on their respective baselines Tuesday for a pregame tribute to Turner and Bobby Cox, the Hall of Fame manager who died Saturday at 84. Life-sized portraits of both men flanked a World Series trophy set on a pedestal in front of home plate, with garlands of flowers in front of each portrait. The Braves will wear No. 6 on a patch on their caps as a tribute to Cox for the rest of the season.
Longtime Chicago sportswriter and editor Dan McGrath shared an exchange he once had with Cox. He was interviewing him about the post-steroid era when Cox interjected, “Why in hell did the Cubs trade Mark De-Rosa? He was such a good athlete. He could play anywhere on the field and not hurt you. [He] understood he was a bench guy and never complained about playing time. Always kept himself ready. Great in the clubhouse, too. One of the best kids I ever managed.”
DeRosa spent the first seven seasons of his career in Atlanta as a bench player for Cox. After two seasons with the Rangers, he came to the Cubs, playing six different positions while gaining an every-day spot in the lineup. He had a .289/.373/.451/.824 slash line in two years in Chicago in 2007-08.
After achieving career bests in home runs (21) and RBI (87), DeRosa was sent to Cleveland for three pitchers: Chris Archer, Jeff Stevens and John Gaub. Archer never pitched for the Cubs, traded to the Rays for pitcher Matt Garza in 2011.
