FIRST IN HISTORY: The star of the Atlanta Braves, who was fired a long time ago, has returned and asked to purchase the entire team.
FIRST IN HISTORY: The star of the Atlanta Braves, who was fired a long time ago, has returned and asked to purchase the entire team.
1976 was the start of America’s bicentennial year, and the Atlanta Braves were quickly losing relevance.
For a large portion of 1973 and 1974, the team was THE STORY in baseball as Hank Aaron pursued and eventually passed Babe Ruth for the most prestigious mark in the history of the sport. However, Aaron left before the 1975 season started because the team gave in to his demands and traded him to the Milwaukee Brewers, allowing him to play designated hitter for the final years of his career in the city that had made him famous in the first place.
In 1975, the Braves finished fifth in the six-team National League West after losing 67-94. Even worse, attendance at Atlanta Stadium, which has 52,000 seats, plunged more than 45 percent to a meager 534,672, or around 6,600 per game, because Aaron and his pursuit of home runs were no longer a lure.
“We had to cheat to get that high,” as former Braves executive Bob Hope (not THAT Bob Hope) put it in his 1991 biography, We Could’ve Finished Last Without You.
We began purchasing complimentary tickets from ourselves at the end of the year for 25 cents apiece, which we referred to as paid admissions. We were struggling to maintain our respectability amidst chaos throughout that terrible season.
The Braves were therefore uninteresting in addition to being awful. A boost in the arm was much needed by the franchise.
Turner really made his debut with the Braves two years prior, when he bought the broadcast rights for WTCG, the local name for Channel 17, to host the team’s games. After hearing that the Braves were up for sale from club president Dan Donahue during a late-season game in 1975, Turner had the bright idea to purchase the entire team.
Turner came to the realization that LaSalle Corporation’s $10 million asking price would ultimately prove to be a good deal when the first shock subsided. If nothing else, Channel 17 would be filled with Braves games for almost half the year.
According to Turner’s letter, Donahue and he decided that he would put down $1 million and pay the remaining $12 million, plus interest, over the course of the following nine years. However, he still needs Major League Baseball’s clearance, which is not certain.
Turner was among the first to recognize the enormous potential of cable television when it was still in its infancy in the mid-1970s. Rumors started to circulate that he intended to turn WTGC into a superstation, beaming its signal throughout the country.
This meant that local TV deals for the other 23 MLB teams would be infringed upon by the availability of Atlanta Braves games across the nation. Naturally, this infuriated the other owners, who expressed their concerns to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.
The other owners in the NL seemed to think that was sufficient, as they gave Turner permission to buy the franchise.
A year later, the Federal Communications Commission granted Turner’s request to broadcast his station’s signal across the country. The station was subsequently renamed WTBS. Turner later claimed, according to Kuhn, to have “pulled the wool over the eyes of the National League.”
Turner would cross paths with Kuhn and his other owners again in the future. Later, more on that.
So how did people react at the time to Turner’s acquisition of the Braves? It was a mixture of confusion and bewilderment.
In the Atlanta Constitution, journalist Ron Hudspeth stated, “Some think him absolutely bananas.” Some people think he’s a genius. He most likely occupies a middle ground.
The Braves would “play with Little League enthusiasm,” Turner promised in his opening speech to season-ticket holders at Atlanta’s Peachtree Plaza, and if the team didn’t improve, “he’d turn off the lights… and permit fans to watch the team for free in the afternoon.” Turner also urged Braves players to relocate to Atlanta year-round in order to foster a sense of camaraderie among teammates and assured fans that the team would win the World Series in five years.
Turner would be “the greatest thing that ever happened to sports in Atlanta,” according to one unidentified fan, and his wife, according to Atlanta Constitution sports editor Jesse Outlar, “thinks he’s off his rocker.”
Turner told reporters that he was considering renaming the team “Eagles” before he was even officially accepted as owner. He said that this would better align the team with the NFL’s Falcons and the NBA’s Hawks, but it was also because he wasn’t a big fan of the team using Native American imagery—a worry he had also briefly expressed more than 15 years later when the Tomahawk Chop started to gain traction, though he never officially discouraged it.
Turner quickly gave up on the notion of renaming the team and focused instead on creating more of an impression.
Andy Messersmith, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, was declared a free agent on December 23, 1975, by an independent arbitrator who ruled that baseball’s “reserve clause” was void and that players could not be permanently tied to their teams. The 30-year-old right-hander stayed unsigned through spring training because most MLB owners were still opposed to the concept of free agency and declined to make a bid for him.
On April 10, 1976, Turner made Messersmith an offer of $1 million for three years. Despite injuries derailing his 1977 season, he managed a 3.04 ERA and was selected to the All-Star team in his rookie season. He was then dealt to the New York Yankees. (Most notably, during a few starts in 1976, Messersmith had “Channel” on the nameplate of his uniform; however, National League president Chub Feeney ordered its removal, citing it as an illegal advertisement for Turner’s television station.) Feeney also scuttled Turner’s proposal to give his players bonuses for wins and formally forbade him from playing poker with team members.
That season, Turner went on to make a fool of himself multiple times, including on Opening Day when he led the Atlanta Stadium crowd in a pre-game performance of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and ran onto the field to celebrate outfielder Steve Henderson after he hit a home run. Turner had a microphone set up next to his seat, close to the Braves dugout. Following a particularly painful defeat, he gave away complimentary tickets to the following day’s game to every fan in attendance.
As a natural promoter, Hope frequently enlisted Turner’s help to implement some of his most audacious concepts. Turner participated in nose-pushing competitions before games with Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw (which left Turner bleeding), and he raced an ostrich-pulled chariot against sportswriter Frank Hyland (Hyland’s bird won, but Turner’s ran straight into the visiting team’s dugout and refused to finish).
In their inaugural season, the Braves only gained three games (to 70-92), but attendance reached over 10,000 per game. Turner was committed to maintaining the club’s momentum going into 1977.
Due to an incident that happened during the 1976 World Series in New York, he nearly missed it. After consuming a significant amount of alcohol during his journey to New York, Turner publicly jeered Giants owner Bob Lurie in the hospitality suite of the Americana Hotel. He boldly announced that he would sign outfielder Gary Matthews, who was set to become one of the most sought-after free agents on the market.
Turner is credited by historian John Helyar with saying, “Whatever you offer him, Lurie, I plan to pay him double,” in his influential history of baseball labor relations, Lords of the Realm, published in 1994. Turner’s outburst was witnessed by a number of baseball owners, executives, and sports writers as the World Series Game 4 that evening was rained out.
Naturally, this violated baseball’s anti-tampering regulations, but since Matthews had not been directly implicated in any wrongdoing, Kuhn was unable to prevent Matthews from signing with the Braves. On November 17, 1976, Matthews signed a $1.8 million, five-year contract.
Turner was hit with a $10,000 fine, had his baseball career stopped for a year, and the Braves’ 1977 amateur draft first-round selection was withdrawn by Kuhn. Given that he was going to captain the American team in the America’s Cup yacht race that year (his boat, Courageous, did win the Cup in September, sweeping all four races against Team Australia), and that he had also purchased the Hawks of the NBA in January 1977—shortly after his baseball suspension was announced—Turner wasn’t exactly devastated by the suspension.
Turner filed a lawsuit in the US. District Court, and his suspension remained in effect until the court made its ruling public. That paved the way for what turned out to be the most strange moment during a term full of them.
On May 11, with the club reeling from a 16-game losing run, Turner called Pittsburgh hotel suite manager Dave Bristol. “Take 10 days off,” Turner instructed Bristol, adding, “go scout the farm system; I’ll manage the team.”
That evening at Three Rivers Stadium, the Braves suffered their 17th consecutive loss under Turner’s leadership, falling to the Pirates 2-1. Turner was not to captain the team for another game.
Baseball’s Rule 20-E, which forbade owners from managing, was cited by Feeney and Kuhn. The regulation was implemented to avert another Connie Mack, who amassed ownership and managerial rights to the Philadelphia Athletics far into his eighties.
Judge Newell Edenfield made his ruling public on May 19. Turner’s one-year ban was overturned, but the Braves received their first-round pick back, which they used to sign Tim Cole, a high school pitcher from New York who pitched in 10 minor league seasons with a 5.55 ERA but was never able to make it to the majors.
The 1977 Braves were abhorrent, even with stellar seasons from slugger Jeff Burroughs (acquired from the Texas Rangers in an offseason deal). Despite going 61-101 and placing last, they were able to secure the first overall pick in the 1978 draft.
Since the little increase in attendance in 1976, attendance has remained level, so Turner started looking for other sources of income. In an interview with a newspaper in Kingsport, Tenn., the Rookie League affiliate of the Braves’ home town, he stated that he had lost $5 million in 1977.
Turner proposed moving the team’s home games to New Orleans and Washington, D.C., in early May 1978. The former city possessed a brand-new indoor stadium, while the latter had seen the Senators move to Texas a few years prior, where they became the Rangers. Around this time, Turner started to face backlash from the local media.
Gary Caruso stated in a May 7, 1978, column in the Atlanta Constitution that Ted Turner “is simply too much of a handicap” and that “if the Braves ever have a winner, it will be in spite of Ted Turner and not because of him.” Caruso also mentioned the excellent work and sound baseball acumen of general manager Bill Lucas and first-year manager Bobby Cox.
Whether or not they were handicapped, the Braves started to gather some youthful talent by 1978, the year Dale Murphy, the eventual two-time National League Most Valuable Player, joined the starting lineup full-time. Bob Horner, a third baseman from Arizona State, was selected by Atlanta with the first overall pick on June 6. Horner rapidly worked his way onto the major league roster and won the NL Rookie of the Year award.
That offseason, Turner once again succumbed to his worst inclinations as the Braves finished 69-93. He got into a nasty contract dispute with Horner, who claimed that the owner was attempting to reduce his pay below what was allowed by the collective bargaining agreement for baseball (Horner and his agent, Bucky Woy, contended that Horner’s signing bonus was part of his salary, a claim Turner refuted).
Horner eventually signed and hit 33 home runs after managing to hold out until the 1979 season. But on May 5, the adored Lucas—the first African-American general manager in MLB history—passed away from a major heart attack and cardiac death. Any positive emotions vanished. (In keeping with his habit of speaking first and thinking later, Turner told reporters that Woy ought to be charged with manslaughter and publicly attributed Lucas’s murder to Horner’s agent.)
The 1979 Braves finished in last place for the fifth time in a row with a record of 66-94. However, things started to look up in 1980, as the team went 81-80 and ended fourth behind a season that saw Murphy have a breakthrough and regular output from Horner, veteran pitcher Phil Niekro, and first baseman Chris Chambliss, who had been acquired in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays the previous December.
During the strike-shortened 1981 season, the Braves fell to 50–56, which prompted possibly Turner’s most misguided decision while he was a member of the team. Shortly after the season concluded, he fired Cox on the advice of his front office staff, which included scouting director Paul Snyder, executive vice president Al Thornwell, director of player development Hank Aaron, and general manager John Mullen.
Turner appeared to regret the choice almost instantly.
On October 10, 1981, Turner informed reporters, “Bobby Cox is going to make some team a fine manager.” “He will undoubtedly be managing in the future, if not next year. We don’t think he’s a good manager, so we’re not letting him leave. That was a new face, that was all. Bobby would be among the front-runners for the position if he weren’t present.
A week later, Cox signed on with Toronto, leading them to their first division title in 1985 and their first winning record in club history in 1983. Joe Torre, who had just concluded his fifth consecutive losing season as the New York Mets’ manager, was hired by the Braves.
Turner started to take a less active role in the Braves’ daily operations as the 1980s went on. He founded CNN in 1980, and the network’s success catapulted him into national prominence.
By 1982, Horner and Murphy had developed into superstars, helping the Braves win their first NL West title in thirteen years. In 1983, Atlanta enjoyed another successful season under Torre, but in part because of Horner’s season-ending wrist injury sustained in August, the team faltered in the second half of the campaign.
In the middle of the 1980s, Turner’s management staff continued to make mistakes, and the Braves once more descended into mediocrity. Just in 1983, Atlanta allowed franchise legend Niekro to walk as a free agent and acquired sore-armed Cleveland Indians pitcher Len Barker, trading away Brett Butler, a rising star, and top prospect Brook Jacoby. After an 80–82 season the year before, Torre was let go by Atlanta.
(Turner had gotten in the way of the front office team’s desire to bring in longtime organization man Eddie Haas in place of Torre three years earlier; they won their second opportunity before 1985, but Haas was fired 121 games into his first season.)
There were also free-agency blunders, like Bruce Sutter, who injured his shoulder in Atlanta after just one full season and is still receiving compensation from the team over thirty years later because of a unique deal his agent worked out with Turner. From 1985 to 1990, the Braves lost 96 games a season on average (they peaked at 54-106 in 1988), and they placed last four times and sixth twice among the six teams in the NL West.
Prior to the 1986 season, Turner made the best choice he could have made as Braves owner when he rehired Cox as general manager. Midway through the 1990 season, Cox returned to the dugout as manager, and the following year, Turner recruited John Schuerholz as general manager, luring him away from the Kansas City Royals.
Now that they had a competent and steady management group in place, the Braves started winning right away. In 1991, Atlanta won the NL pennant, advanced to the World Series, and captured the series four years later.
In 1996, Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympics, and Turner Broadcasting merged with Time-Warner, including the sale of the Braves. The stadium, which had been constructed for the games, was renamed Turner Field after the Braves moved into it the following season. (The city of Atlanta sold Turner Field to Georgia State University, which converted the site into a football stadium when the Braves relocated to Cobb County and SunTrust Park in 2017.)
Turner, who is 81 years old, has been out of the public eye lately, but he is still one of the biggest landowners in the country. In a 2018 CBS Sunday Morning interview, he disclosed that he was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a degenerative disease that impairs memory and other cognitive abilities. Ted Koppel is a veteran journalist.
Turner saw ups and downs during his 21-year career as Braves owner. It was never monotonous, though.
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