When Ted Turner Was Manager of The Atlanta Braves For a Day

(AP Photo)

Ted Turner, best known for establishing CNN & changing the way the world watches news, passed away today at the age of 87.

Yet when I think of Turner, I think of sports - the Americas' Cup, World Championship Wrestling, the Atlanta Hawks and, especially, the Atlanta Braves.

Turner purchased the Braves in 1976 as a means to place programming on his TV station, WTBS. In the early days of Turner's ownership, there wasn't much worth watching.

In 1977, mired in a 16-game losing streak, Turner decided to place manager Dave Bristol on "a 10-day scouting trip" and appointed himself manager of the club. 

Turner thought there was nothing to managing a ballclub claiming, "Managing isn't that difficult; you just have to score more runs than the other guy."

Well, runs proved hard to come by on May 11, 1977 (almost 49 years to the day) when Turner suited up to manage the team against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium. Turner did have future Hall of Famer Phil Niekro on the mound. The knuckleballer gave up only 2 runs over 8 innings pitched. However, one of those runs was a HR by Dave Parker, another future Hall of Famer.

However, John Candelaria pitched better. The Candy Man gave up a single run over 8.2 innings pitched before future Hall of Famer Goose Gossage got the final out. This was Candelaria's career year when he won a career high 20 games and led the NL with a 2.34 ERA. The only run the Braves managed to get off the Candy Man was a RBI single by Barry Bonnell in the top of the 2nd inning. The Braves lost 2-1 and extended their losing streak to 17 games.

National League President Chub Feeney issued an edict against Turner continuing to manage due to a rule not allowing persons with a financial stake in their clubs to work in an on-field capacity. Turner appealed to MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, but to no avail. Turner was livid:

They must have put that rule in yesterday. If I'm smart enough to save $11 million to buy the team, I ought to be smart enough to manage it.

Of course, Connie Mack owned the Philadelphia A's for more than half a century and managed the team sporting a suit and a tie leading his club to five World Series titles. However, before becoming an owner Mack also played in major leagues for a decade during the 1880s and 1890s as a catcher.

Simply put, Ted Turner was no Connie Mack. 

The Braves would snap their 17-game losing streak the following night under interim manager Vern Benson besting the Bucs 6-1 with 3 RBI from Braves starting pitcher Max León. Ironically, Benson had played for Connie Mack as a member of the A's in both 1943 and 1946.

Bristol would return to the club, and the Braves would lose 100 plus games for the first time since 1935. Turner would fire Bristol after the season and replace him with Bobby Cox. However, it wasn't until the second time that Turner hired Cox that things started to turn in the Braves favor. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was around the time Turner decided to let baseball people run the Atlanta Braves. 

After the Braves won the World Series in 1995, Turner stated, "For the 10 years I ran [the team], it was a disaster.... As I relinquished control of the Braves and gave somebody else the responsibility, it did well."

At least Ted Turner learned from his mistakes. Some people never do. R.I.P.