‘Two peas in a pod,’ Schuerholz credits Cox

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Recognizing there was a good possibility the Royals would serve as his team’s opposition in the 1976 American League Championship Series, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner sent his Triple-A Syracuse manager, Bobby Cox, on a late September scouting mission to Kansas City.

Cox arranged his ticket and parking requests through a young executive named John Schuerholz, who at the time was running the Royals’ Minor League system. These two men had never previously met, but the time they shared together during that week in Kansas City enabled them to form a bond that significantly influenced their respective Hall of Fame careers and the construction of the greatest era in Braves history.

“I had never met [Cox], but while socializing, shall I say, one night after a game, we got to know each other pretty well and got to know it was an easy friendship and easy relationship,” Schuerholz said. “Mutual respect was already there.”

Since learning he was unanimously elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame via the Today’s Game Era Committee ballot on Sunday night, Schuerholz has beamed with pride and repeatedly credited Cox, the fellow Hall of Famer with whom he formed arguably the greatest general manager/manager combo baseball has seen.

“There’s such a close relationship between the two of them,” Braves chairman and CEO Terry McGuirk said. “When others proxied or surrogated for them at one time or another, it just didn’t work. It just showed how unique that chemistry was. Both of them were a man’s man. They related on that kind of a basis.”

Schuerholz helped mold the Royals through their era as an expansion franchise and …

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