1982 Atlanta Braves season
| 1982 Atlanta Braves | |
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| 1982 NL West Champions | |
| Major League affiliations | |
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| Location | |
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| Results | |
| Record | 89–73 (.549) |
| Divisional place | 1st |
| Other information | |
| Owner(s) | Ted Turner |
| General manager(s) | John Mullen |
| Manager(s) | Joe Torre |
| Local television |
WTBS Superstation WTBS |
| Local radio |
WSB (Ernie Johnson, Pete Van Wieren, Skip Caray, Darrel Chaney) |
| < Previous season Next season > | |
The 1982 Atlanta Braves went 89–73 and won the NL West division for the first time since 1969, but were swept in 3 games by the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS.
In 2014, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame as two of the most successful managers of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Cox had won 2,564 regular-season games, five pennants and one World Series over 29 seasons; Torre had won 2,326 games, six pennants and four World Series over his 29-year career. But when the 1981 season ended, those success stories seemed far-fetched, at best. And both men ended up unemployed, if only briefly.
The New York Mets fired Torre on October 5, 1981; the Braves dismissed Cox three days later. Cox, finishing his fourth season during his first tour as Atlanta's manager, was only 266–323 (.452) with one over-.500 season; Torre was 286–420 (.405) in 4 1⁄2 seasons with the Mets. In both 1978 and 1979, Cox's Braves and Torre's Mets had each finished in the cellar of their respective National League divisions.
Cox, then 40 years old, landed on his feet as manager of the American League Toronto Blue Jays—then a struggling expansion team in its fifth year of existence—on October 15, 1981; nine days later, Torre, 41, was announced as Cox's successor in Atlanta, returning to the team where he had become an All-Star catcher during the 1960s. In different ways, the firings and hirings marked positive turning points in each man's career.
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