TORONTO — Bobby Cox took over as Toronto Blue Jays manager at a pivotal time for the young franchise, the dire days of the first expansion seasons in the past, a critical mass of talent transitioning to the majors.
Roy Hartsfield had overseen three consecutive 100-plus loss years out of the gate that helped GM Pat Gillick build a farm system that became the envy of baseball. Bobby Mattick, the scouting and player development guru, followed with two years of helping young players get their feet wet.
But by the end of the 1981 season, the Blue Jays were ready for a manager to help mould them into the contender they had the potential to become. Cox, close friends with Gillick from their days together in player development with the New York Yankees, got the job and did precisely that.
In 1982, Cox’s first season at the helm, the Blue Jays went 78-84 to climb out of the AL East basement for the first time, won 89 games in each of the next two seasons before clinching the division for the first time in 1985, with a still-franchise best 99 wins.
“Bobby instilled winning,” said Howard Starkman, the team’s longtime communications head who retired in 2014 as the organization’s longest-serving employee. “We were only eight years into the business and all of a sudden we were one win from having the World Series at Exhibition Stadium, which would have been incredible. Bobby knew how to get the most out of players. He was pretty well a players’ manager, he supported them, but behind closed doors, he could be confrontational, like they all can, when they need to be.”
Cox’s brief but important contributions to the Blue Jays – he left to become Atlanta’s GM after the heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 ALCS – were remembered Saturday after the Braves announced his death at the age of 84.
Prior to a 14-1 win at Rogers Centre over the Los Angeles Angels, the Blue Jays held a moment of silence for the Hall of Famer, who was the manager of the Braves team they beat in the 1992 World Series.
While Cox’s legacy is clearly in Atlanta, where he led the team during its run of 14 straight NL East titles from 1991-2005 and won the 1995 World Series, his 355-292 record with Toronto is especially poignant as the Blue Jays celebrate team history during their 50th season.
Within that realm, an interesting what-if is what would have happened had Cox remained as manager beyond 1985.
Jimy Williams moved over from third base coach once he left, and good Blue Jays teams missed the playoffs in three straight years under his watch, including a devastating collapse in the final week of the 1987 season, when they lost seven straight.
They didn’t correct until Cito Gaston took over following a 12-24 start in 1989 and rallied the team to its second AL East title and, eventually, won consecutive World Series. Perhaps the timeline would have been different had Cox remained at the helm, but he made a decision after the 1985 season that was based on “strictly family” reasons.
“I was only on a one-year contract, the contract expired, I got the call from Ted Turner (the late former Braves owner) about working for them and we lived in Atlanta,” Cox recalled in 2013, after he was named for induction to the Hall of Fame. “I loved Toronto, believe me, that’s one of the greatest experiences I ever had in baseball, managing for Pat Gillick and Paul Beeston. I had more fun there than probably anywhere in the world. I didn’t want to leave, but with family needs, it was the right thing to do as a father.”
Cox’s impact on the franchise endured well beyond, too, not only in the way the club he helped groom continued to perform, but also in Gaston, whom he brought over as his hitting coach.
“I was completely shocked that Bobby had included me on his list,” Gaston, during a 2015 interview, recalled of how Cox brought him to Toronto. “Bobby and I go back to playing together (double-A Austin in 1966). I played for Bobby for one year (with Atlanta in 1978). And I think the year and a half I worked in the minor-leagues with the Braves, they saw some improvement in those kids and Bobby noticed that. My only year I was in spring training with the Braves as a coach he kept me in big-league camp the whole time. I might have spent (only) two weeks in the minors so I’ve been spoiled. I had it made here for a long time.”
Gaston, at 1,764 games and a 913-851 record, is the longest serving and winningest manager in franchise history, followed by John Gibbons at 1,562 games and a 793-789 mark.
Cox is third at 647 games, followed by current manager John Schneider, who’s at 599 games and a 321-278, and will overtake him this year. Cox remains the only Blue Jays manager voted AL Manager of the Year, although Gaston, in 1989 especially but also in 1992 and 1993, and Schneider in 2025, certainly were deserving, as well.
“He was a big part of this organization and a big part Major League Baseball, so it’s always sad to hear that news and always sad for the baseball family to lose someone who’s done so much,” said Schneider. “Speaking for me and speaking for the whole organization, our thoughts and our prayers go out to his family. Whenever you have this job, you feel tied to people who have done before you and people doing it now and people who are going to do it after you. So, sad day for baseball.”
And for the Blue Jays, where Cox was the right manager at the right time.