For those of us who have the night off since today is a World Series travel day, how about a little controversy. Is Bobby Cox the greatest manager ever?

I know many folk who aren't even willing to concede that he is a good manager now.

Veteran baseball guru Bill James makes the case that he may be the greatest ever.

James is mindful of Cox's less-than-brilliant record in postseason play, which got even less brilliant two weeks ago. He maintains that with Cox facing Barry Bonds, somebody had to get the postseason monkey off their back, because there just weren't enough monkeys to go around.

Here's the rest of James' case for Cox:

Cox hasn't had a world of success in the postseason, but he has had worlds of fun in the 162-game run. I would argue that, looking only at the regular-season schedule, Cox has been the most successful manager ever. He won 101 games this year and everybody yawned and went back to sleep, because he does that all the time.

Twenty years of unbroken success is unprecedented.

Go back to this spring and fully half of the preseason pundits were predicting that this would be the year the Braves' run ran out. It didn't; Cox took another team that could have collapsed, and had another successful season.

Chris Hammond anybody?

A year ago, the former Lookout left-hander could have auctioned his services on Ebay without attracting flies. He hadn't had a winning record since 1995, or, worse yet, an opposition batting average below .300. This year, in 63 games, he had an ERA starting with a goose egg.

Cox made his Major League managerial debut with the Braves in 1978. After leaving to manage Toronto for four years in the early '80s, he returned to the Braves organization as general manager in 1985. In 1990 Cox returned to the Braves' dugout for good.

Cox has yet to manage a team that has had a disappointing regular season, dating back to his Major League debut in 1978.

Do you have any concept of how amazing that is?

Every year, a third of the teams in the Major Leagues are going to have disappointing seasons. To dodge that bullet every year for five years is very, very difficult.

To dodge it every year for 10 years is almost impossible.

Two decades? That is impossible, isn't it?

Nobody else in Major League history can match that, except possibly Joe McCarthy, and McCarthy was managing Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Hack Wilson and Rogers Hornsby.

If you argue Bobby's case to any of his critics, they'll tell you that Cox has had great talent to work with.

Yeah, right; Keith Lockhart's a Hall of Famer.

Cox has had some good players -- nobody has 20 straight successful seasons without a little help from his players -- but if you compare the talent that Cox has had to, let us say, the Detroit Tigers of the 1980s, or the Seattle Mariners of the 1990s, Cox is a comparative pauper.

Sparky Anderson's second basemen were Joe Morgan and Lou Whitaker; Cox's have been Glenn Hubbard, Damaso Garcia, Jeff Treadway, Mark Lemke and Lockhart.

Sparky's catchers were Johnny Bench and Lance Parrish; Cox's catchers have been Ernie Whitt, Biff Pocoroba, Bruce Benedict, Greg Olson and Javy Lopez.

Sure, Cox has had Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and Chipper Jones. He has also had more than his share of Rafael Belliards and Mike Mordecais and Kent Merckers.

Cox had three .300 hitters this year, two of whom were Gary Sheffield and Matt Franco.

Everybody's had their shot at managing Sheffield, and a year ago, who wanted Franco?

My point is, even if you have talent, you don't have a good year every year. Casey Stengel didn't. Joe Torre hasn't. Tony La Russa hasn't, Walter Alston didn't.

Bobby Cox has -- and that puts him, at least in my book, at the head of the list.

* * * * *
Adapted from article on the MLB.com web site.