A Truly Impressive Record

Baseball is very excited and divided about this Barry Bonds fella that's about to break Hank Aaron's home run record. Barry's a cheater! Barry is great! Barry's a jerk.

For my money, though, there's no better record than the one Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox tied last night. Bobby Cox has pissed off a lot of umpires in his day. On 131 occasions, he's pissed off an umpire so much, they've tossed him from the game.

After (perhaps) Ty Cobb, the angriest man in the history of baseball was a player and manager named John McGraw. McGraw was affiliated with the New York Giants during the days of the great Christy Mathewson. Christy was a peaceful, calm man, the yin to McGraw's yang. McGraw was a fighting Irishman. As a player and a manager, he was thrown out of 131 games. Many thought it was an unbreakable record.

Until Bobby Cox started managing. He never got thrown out as a player, so his 131 games have only been while he's serving as the leader and example to his players.

Well done, Mr. Bobby Cox. I salute you.

And if you get thrown out of 31 more games, you will have been tossed out of an entire season of baseball. It might seem to be an unreachable goal, but if anyone can do it, you can.