May 10, 1977 – The zaniness of Ted Turner
- Sal Maiorana
- May 10, 2017
- 3 min read
The Yankees were off as they flew out to Seattle to open a West Coast trip that would have them also visiting Anaheim and Oakland, so I thought I’d share the story of the night Atlanta Braves Ted Turner went down to the dugout to manage his horrendous team.
Turner, a rising mogul in the world of media, bought the Braves and the Atlanta Hawks’ NBA team in 1976, in part so that the teams could provide programming for his superstation, WTBS. The Braves had been a middling franchise ever since they’d relocated from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966. Their only playoff appearance had come in 1969, the first year of the new four-division alignment. They were swept in three games by the Mets in the first National League Championship Series.
Coming off a 92-loss season in Turner’s maiden year, the Braves hit rock bottom in 1977. On this night 40 years ago, the Braves lost their 16th game in a row, and Turner had seen enough. The next night, May 11, Turner took matters into his own hands. He sent manager Dave Bristol out on a 10-day “scouting trip,” put on uniform number 27, and managed the team, the first owner to do so since Connie Mack. Not even George Steinbrenner ever pulled something like that.
Turner lost his one and only game, 2-1, to the Pittsburgh Pirates, saying afterward, “Tonight I learned first-hand exactly what’s going on with our club; we’re snake bit.”
Turner said the plan to manage the team was not one he mulled for very long. In fact, it was a spur of the moment decision as he grew frustrated watching the Braves lose night after night after night. “If I had thought about it for a long time, I wouldn’t have had the guts to do it,” said the man who founded CNN, the world’s first 24-hour cable new network, in 1980. “It’s better than sitting in the stands. I can spit my tobacco on the floor in the dugout. I can’t do that in the stands.”
Future Hall of Famer Phil Niekro was the Braves’ starting pitcher in this momentous game. He was contacted by ESPN recently to talk about that night, and Niekro recalled it fondly.
“I just got through swinging in the cage, and I came out and walked behind the batting cage for the next round and Ted came out of the dugout and he walked behind the batting cage,” Niekro said. “I looked at him and jokingly I said, ‘Ted, what spot you got me hitting in today?’ And he said, ‘Hell, I don’t know. You want to lead off? You want to hit second or third? We just lost 16 in a row. You’ve been around here long enough. Hit wherever you want to.’ I said, ‘I don’t think that’s going to work, Ted. Put me in that ninth spot.’”
Turner, then 38 years old, admitted he let coaches Vern Benson and Chris Cannizzaro make the strategy decisions, though he added, “I could have made some if I wanted. Maybe I will sometime.”
Ted Turner in the dugout at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.
Well, not so fast. NL president Chub Feeney stepped in and told Turner to get back to his box seat. Turner appealed to Bowie Kuhn, and the MLB commissioner sided with Feeney, saying it was inappropriate for Turner to manage because of his “lack of familiarity with game operations.”
“They must have put that rule in yesterday,” Turner told reporters the next day after being informed his managing days were done. “If I’m smart enough to save $11 million to buy the team, I ought to be smart enough to manage it.”
Benson managed the next night and the Braves ended their losing streak with a 6-1 victory, and then Bristol was back in the dugout for the rest of the 61-101 season, then was fired and replaced by Bobby Cox, the first of Cox’s two stints with Atlanta.
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