One of the reasons that Lou Piniella is one of the few remaining practicioners of the art of umpire-baiting is that Sweet Lou is the linear descendant of John McGraw. That is, John McGraw coached Casey Stengel, who coached Billy Martin, who coached Lou Piniella. Each of these were scrappy players of who made up for their lack of physical gifts with a fiery, win-at-any-cost temper that looked for every possible competitive advantage. When they became managers, they found similar players whom they mentored in their style of baseball, grooming them to become managers themselves.

For managers such as these, tantrums and diatribes were part of the way they lit a fire under their team, whereas for Bobby Cox, arguing balls and strikes is simply an elevated form of whining. It works for him during the regular season, as it is usually employed to keep his players from being thrown out of games (and possibly suspended) themselves. But Cox's Droopy-dog style has been death in the post-season, where the Atlanta Braves, despite being perennial contenders anchored by a starting rotation featuring 3 likely Hall of Famers, have only won the World Series once. In the crucible of the playoffs, Cox's whiny attitude inevitably spills over to his team, and they are inevitably steamrolled by hungrier, fiestier (though often less talented) ballclubs.

Nice job delineating the connection between McGraw and Piniella. I wonder if McGraw passed down that lucky piece of lynching rope from manager to manager ... probably not.

I've never seen Cox's demeanor get the blame for the Braves' postseason drought. What about Atlanta's perpetually lousy bullpen? Or just bad luck?

whiny managers always pissed me off and i'm sure their negativity spills onto the players and makes the whole organization look bad. the only thing that kills me is ozzie guillan's seemingly easy world series win a couple years back. he whines and bitches and gets very negative towards the players, the team and himself. somehow it worked for the sox in 2005, so the braves might need a better excuse.

Here's the thing about bad luck---in a long series, sooner or later you're going to get a bad call go against you, especially one involving balls and strikes. The question is, how do you react to it? Do you whine and moan and do your best "Why me, Lord? Why can't we ever catch a break?" routine, or do you just roll with it and play? Certainly with Bobby Cox on the top steps moaning to the umpires all game long, it sets a tone for the rest of the team, and gives them a nice convenient excuse for losing---"We wuz robbed!"

It's true that there are more reasons for Atlanta's post-season failures than Bobby Cox, including a generally mediocre bullpen (although in the years that Smoltz was a lights-out closer, they simply made sure to lose the game before he got a chance to enter it) and the stupefying drone of the Tomahawk Chop. But Bobby Cox is the Marty Schottenheimer of baseball, the right guy to get you through a long season, but the wrong guy to fire up a team when it matters most.

The funny thing about Guillen when they won the World Series, he probably did less managing than any manager in history, letting his starters go nine innings game after game. He let his players play and they responded. I much preferred that to Gene Mauch style over-managing. Tony LaRussa finally quit trying to micromanage his team last year and they caught fire in the end, winning the World Series despite being the least talented team in the playoffs.

Basically Ozzie is in the Billy Martin mold, a loose cannon calling his players out, insulting their manhood and the like. Often this type of manager gets immediate results, but it gets tiresome over the long haul, which is why Martin kept getting fired despite his winning ways. Ozzie may have reached a similar point of diminishing returns for the Sox. Long term, a guy like Joe Torre is much easier to play for. The danger is that teams can get complacent under a laid back skipper, as the Yanks seem to have done this year. Maybe what they need is someone like Ozzie to kick some butt for a few years before he goes too far and gets canned. Then Steinbrenner can wait a year, hire him again, let him kick some more butt, fire him again, and so on and so on.

bobby cox loses to teams that are less talented than his? His four losses were to the twins who were just nasty that season and kirby had one of the greatest series' ever, and the blue jays and yanks which were both in the middle of world series winning streaks- jays two in a row and yankees getting four of five. give the man his due

The Braves made the playoffs every year from 1991-2005, interrupted only by the strike year, 1994. In that time, they lost to a team with a worse record than theirs in 1992,1993, 1996,1997,1998,1999, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. They lost to a team with a better record than theirs in 1991 and 2001. They lost to a team with an identical record as theirs in 2000. They won in 1995.

So based on W-L records, the evidence shows that the Braves lost to inferior teams time and time again with Bobby Cox at the helm. I give Cox (and GM John Scheurholz) credit for keeping the Braves in contention for 15 straight years with a rotating roster, but they also deserve some of the blame for their continual collapse in the post-season.