Where Have You Gone Jung Bong?

With the exception of elite sluggers and starting pitchers, perhaps no breed of Major Leaguer has a longer shelf life than the left-handed reliever. Given the dearth of southpaw hurlers and the LaRussian match-game that's taken over in the past twenty years, we've seen several lefties hang on interminably.

So why then did the career of former Braves prospect and lefty pitcher Jung Bong - ahem - burn out at age 24 after parts of just three seasons in the Majors? Bong plays a central role in one of my favorite all time baseball anecdotes.

As the Mets' disastrous 2002 crashed and burned its way to the finish line, a September tabloid scandal broke, alleging widespread use of marijuana within the Mets organization, complete with a Newsday photo of Mets reliever Grant Roberts hitting a (non-Jung) bong. The Mets characteristically botched their public relations response. At the subsequent press conference manager Bobby Valentine, on his way out of a job, hilariously pantomimed a stoned baseball player trying to take an at bat. Lamentably, I can't find the video anywhere online.

A week later the Mets hosted their principal rivals, the Atlanta Braves, in a season ending series at Shea. In the season's final game, long after the Braves had clinched the NL East and with the Mets already having locked up last place, Bobby Cox managed a game that belied his curmudgeonly reputation.

Cox emptied his bench over the course of the game, using twenty four different players. In the top of the fifth, trailing just 2-1, the Braves pitcher Mike Remlinger was due to come to the plate. Cox decided to use a pinch hitter. With the rosters expanded for September, Cox had no shortage of options at his disposal, including star catcher Javy Lopez.

So who did Cox send up to pinch hit? Not a position player at all, but a relief pitcher who hadn't appeared in a Major League game in five months. To the snickers of many, pinch hitter Jung Bong was announced over the Shea Stadium public address system. Bong went down swinging to end the frame, and just to rub salt in the wound, Cox didn't even leave him in the game to pitch.

So in honor of Bobby V's acting, Bobby Cox' managing, Jung Bong's name, and the 2002 New York Mets' recreational practices, we'll play this one:

Remembering Bobby Cox As A Yankee

Yesterday the Atlanta Braves announced that manager Bobby Cox, who recently had been pondering his managerial future, signed a one year contract extension and will retire as field manager at the conclusion of the 2010 season.

Cox is a fixture with the Braves. He'll have completed 21 consecutive seasons at their helm by the time of his retirment, as well as an additional four seasons as their skipper at the start of his managerial career. He was also the Braves' General Manager from 1986 until returning to the dugout in June of 1990. When he retires after next season he'll have a five year contract waiting for him to serve the Braves as a baseball operations consultant.

But before Bobby Cox became so inextricably linked with the Braves, he had a lengthy history with the Yankees organization. After the 1967 season, Cox was a twenty-six year old with no Major League experience who had already washed out of the Dodgers, Cubs, and Braves systems in an eight year minor league career. On December 7th, the Braves flipped him to the Yankees for two bit players, one of whom would never again appear in the Majors.

The Yankees had fallen on hard times by 1968, and Cox was able to break camp with the team. Two weeks into the season he won the third base job, replacing Charley Smith (who incidentally had been all the Yankees received from St. Louis in exchange for Roger Maris just a year earlier). Cox had a fair season (91 OPS+) and the Yankees, who had finished ninth in the ten team league the year before, turned in a surprising 83-79 record and finished fifth.

In 1969 Cox lost the third base job to Bobby Murcer, who was returning from two years lost to military service. When Murcer was moved to the outfield thirty games into the season, it was Jerry Kenney, not Cox, who took over at the hot corner. Cox stuck with the team as a reserve through the year, but that was the end of his Major League playing career.

After spending 1970 at the Yanks' AAA team in Syracuse, the Yankees gave Cox a start on his second careeer, appointing him manager of the single A Fort Lauderdale team for 1971. The next year he moved up West Haven (CT) in the AA Eastern League, and then spent four seasons as the skipper for AAA Syracuse. In six minor league seasons, Cox compiled a 459-387 record (.543), and won the EL Championship in 1972 and the IL Championship in 1976. Cox then joined the Yankees' Major League coaching staff for the 1977 season, picking up his first World Series ring in the process.

Following the season, the Braves hired Cox and save for a four year stint as the Blue Jays manager from 1982-85, he's been there ever since. Cox ranks fourth on the all-time managerial wins list with 2,409, sandwiched between contemporaries Tony LaRussa and Joe Torre. However, LaRussa has compiled his victories with three different clubs, Torre with four. Cox's 2,054 wins as Braves skipper rank third behind Connie Mack and John McGraw for the highest total with a single club.

1996 World Series: Game 1

[With the Yankees squaring off against the Braves this week, we thought it would be appropriate to take a look back at the two World Series during which they faced off in the late 90's]

With each year that passes, the exact boundaries of the Yankees' most recent dynastic era become increasingly clear. The late stretch of first round playoff exits and last year's failure to qualify for the postseason has separated the current Yankees team from the squads of the late 90's and the turn of the millennium. The only common parts between the 1996 roster (or the 2001 version, for that matter) and the current one are Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera. Buster Onley placed the end of the dynasty as the last night of it as Game 7 of the 2001 Series but even if you'd argue that it took place sometime in October of 2004, the accumulation of 4 WS Titles and 6 appearances in 8 years in the era of free agency is pretty staggering.

If the 1996 World Series had played itself out differently, the Braves could very well have been the team of the 90's that everyone still romanticizes. Who knows what rash decisions George Steinbrenner might have dictated and the implications they might have had. Surely things couldn't have turned out much better than they did for the Yanks, so pretty much any decision other than the ones that were made wouldn't have been beneficial.

Perhaps the championship glow from winning in '96 would have been the first step to immortalizing Bobby Cox instead of Joe Torre, Chipper Jones, not Derek Jeter, and Fred McGriff could have replaced Paul O'Neill. Maybe Atlanta would have been the owners of an incredible run and the Yanks would have been the ones who would only manage one title during their extended playoff appearance streak.

Midway through the 1990 season, Bobby Cox came down from his GM position with the Braves for his second stint in their dugout. This time, he took the team to the World Series in both of his first full seasons, losing to the Twins in seven games in 1991 and then to the Blue Jays in six in 1992. In the strike-shortened season of 1994, the Braves were on pace to win 96 games but were six games behind the Expos when the season was cut short. They won their only World Series of the Cox era in 1995, needing six games to knock of the Indians.

So when the Yanks and Braves ended up head to head in the 1996 WS, it was Atlanta who were the heavy favorites and the Bombers who were the up and comers, making only their second playoff appearance in 15 years. Don Mattingly had just retired and although Buck Showalter had overseen some vast improvements take place in the franchise he was replaced in a somewhat confusing maneuver.

Game 1 was originally supposed to take place on October 19th, but the first World Series rainout in ten years pushed the start of the series back and ended up eliminating the travel day that was supposed to take place after the first two games were completed in New York.

After falling behind in the NLCS to the Cardinals 3-1, the Braves had caught ablaze in the final three games, winning 14-0, 3-1 and 15-0. The Yanks on the other hand had wrapped up their 4-1 victory against the Orioles four days earlier. The rainout gave the Braves an extra day to recover from the seven game bout with the Cards, but the Yanks needed no such reprieve.

It was damp 53 degrees at game time and a 24 year old Andy Pettitte took the hill for the Yanks. Pettitte had a breakout year, notching 21 wins with a 3.87 ERA and finishing second in the Cy Young voting to Pat Hentgen. He retired the side in order in the first inning and the 1996 World Series was under way.

In the Yanks half of the first inning, Bernie Williams and Tino Martinez both worked two out walks but Cecil Fielder flew out to the gap in right field to end the frame.

Javy Lopez got aboard with a one out single in the second and remained on first until Andruw Jones came to the plate with two outs. Jones was only 19 and had played in just 31 regular season games that year, but worked a decidedly veteran at-bat against Pettitte. He worked the count full and deposited the first 3-2 pitch into the left field stands, drawing the first blood in the game. 2-0 Braves.

Paul O'Neill and Jim Leyritz worked two more walks off of John Smotlz in the second, but again failed to plate a run.

The wheels came off in the third inning for Pettitte, even though he never allowed anything worse than a single. The damage occurred as follows, single by Marquis Grissom, single by Jeff Blauser, sac bunt by Mark Lemke, then a two-run single by Chipper Jones who advanced to second on the throw home. Jones then stole third, and was driven in on a base hit by Fred McGriff. Pettitte's night was over after he walked Javy Lopez and left the game trailing 5-0. He was replaced by Brain Boehringer, who got Jermaine Dye to fly to left, but allowed another homer to Andruw Jones put the game even further out of reach. 8-0 Braves, seven of those runs charged to Pettitte in just 2 1/3 IP.

The Yankees wouldn't score until the fifth inning on a double by Wade Boggs and it would prove to be all the Yanks could muster offensively. They worked 5 walks but only 4 hits, a far cry from the 14 baserunners Atlanta was successful in creating.

Smotlz pitched a pretty smooth 6 innings of one run ball before handing it off to the bullpen, an effort which meant the Braves had given up only two runs in their last four games, all the while scoring 44.

The Yanks looked rusty and overmatched and it appeared that the Vegas oddsmakers and those who thought wrapping up their series with Baltimore early worked to their disadvantage were right.