There was perhaps no bigger name in the last 50 years in the history of our state than Ted Turner. So much of what he did as an entrepreneur has benefitted all of us and will continue to for decades to come.
Part of his story, of course, is that of a sports team owner. Ted (he wanted all of us to call him Ted, so let’s do that) owned theAtlanta Braves,Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers and even the Atlanta Chiefs soccer team. Sports on television in Georgia was led for many years by a former UHF television station in Atlanta – WTCG Channel 17 – that became The SuperStation WTBS.
His impact on how we watch sports and television in general is unparalleled.
Fifty years ago, Ted bought the Braves, who were so bad then many believed they could have possibly moved out of Atlanta. He mainly wanted them to help program his television station, but in time he became a fan and like anything he owned, he wanted them to be successful.
Heck, he even managed the Braves for one game before MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ruled Turner couldn’t do that.
The stories of Ted Turner, simply in sports, are unlimited. We could fill several newspaper pages with them. He would have a thought and do it. He wanted people to be entertained, wanted people to come to the park. He would think of the most outrageous things and think it would work. It usually did.
When he bought the Braves, they were bad, really bad. There were not crowds at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, but instead small gatherings. Ted would try to get people to come out by having different events. He had the broadcasters race him on ostriches. Yes, ostrich races. He had Karl Wallenda walk across the stadium on a tightrope. To promote his Channel 17, he actually made Andy Messersmith, his first free agent signing, have the word “Channel” put above the 17 on the back of his jersey. The commissioner put a stop to that, as well.
On certain Sundays after the Braves games, he would have Georgia Championship Wrestling matches in the old picnic area. If you didn’t want to come watch the Braves play baseball, maybe you’d want to go watch wrestling.
Wrestling was as much a part of early-WTBS days as anything. He would have five hours each weekend of Georgia Championship Wrestling, making people like Dusty Rhodes, Mr. Wrestling II and Ric Flair household names in our state.
You could watch the old sitcoms during the day, the Braves at night, and wrestling over the weekend. Of course, he didn’t want to be like the other networks, so programming on WTBS started at :05 or :35. And who could miss the Academy Award theater on Sunday mornings?
The Andy Griffith Show, Space Giants, Georgia Championship Wrestling, and the Braves – that was my childhood. It was all on TBS.
Ted had his box at the stadium, right near the dugout. Occasionally, when the Braves did something big, he would jump out of his owner’s box and congratulate the player on the field. When the Braves won, he would be in the dugout to shake their hands. He would have team meetings and give speeches that would rival a war general.
If you went to a Braves game in the late-1970s, you would probably see Ted running up the aisles to the concession stand, usually in his flip-flops. He was the first one to decide to put TVs at the concession stands, so people could still see the game when they went to get a beer or hot dog. Then he decided he wanted to be served in his box, so he was the first owner to have wait service in the expensive seats.
Ted was hands-on with the Braves. While he allowed Bill Lucas, the first black executive to run a baseball team, to hire Bobby Cox as manager in 1978, he let others convince him to fire Cox after the 1981 season.
When Ted had the press conference to announce Cox’s firing, Cox was sitting right next to Ted. A reporter asked Turner what he was looking for in a new manager. Ted said, “Well, if I hadn’t just fired him, I’d be looking for someone just like Bobby Cox.”
Instead, Turner hired Joe Torre, who led the Braves to a NL West division title in 1982. That year, Turner had the bold idea of producing a TV show that would be a behind-the-scenes look at a baseball season. “It’s a Long Way to October” was a five-hour special that aired in the winter of 1983, and it was way before it’s time.
The Braves on TBS became “America’s Team.” Baseball fans in all 50 states, especially ones without a hometown baseball team, watched the Braves every night at 7:35. They fell in love with Phil Niekro, Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Glenn Hubbard and Bruce Benedict. Fans loved the announcers – Ernie Johnson, Pete Van Wieren, Skip Caray, and even John Sterling, who ironically died earlier this week. So many baseball fans, so many Braves fans, started watching because of Turner putting the Braves on a satellite back in the late-1970s.
Ted even made trades. In August 1983, the Braves had tried to acquire Rangers’ left-hander Rick Honeycutt. Instead, he was traded to the Dodgers. So, Turner panicked, knowing the Braves had to have another pitcher to get back to the playoffs. He traded three players to be named later to Cleveland for Len Barker.
The problem was that word leaked out one of the players who would head to Cleveland after the season was fan favorite Brett Butler, who went directly to Turner and asked him if he was in the trade. Turner didn’t answer, but he winked at Butler, who then shared the story with reporters.
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Kuhn, who never had much love for Turner, threatened to send Butler to Cleveland immediately. Instead, Kuhn fined Turner $50,000 for telling Butler he was involved, and he allowed Butler to remain with the Braves for the rest of the 1983 season.
That deal is still considered one of the worst trades in Braves history. Butler went on to have a tremendous MLB career. Barker was a huge flop for the Braves.
Turner enraged other owners by offering huge contracts. He tried to sign Pete Rose, Dave Winfield, Don Sutton, and Rich Gossage. The two he did convince to sign with the Braves, Al Hrabosky and Bruce Sutter, were paid a fortune but their best days were behind them.
The most important decision Ted ever made was in 1985. The Braves had fired Torre the year before and then collapsed in 1985 with Eddie Haas as manager. At the same time, Turner was trying to buy things – like movie studios and CBS. He didn’t have time run the Braves.
Ted wanted Cox to come back and manage the Braves, but Cox was managing Toronto in the AL Championship Series. Worried he’d miss out on getting a good manager, Turner hired Chuck Tanner, who had just been fired in Pittsburgh, to manage the team. But after Toronto was eliminated by Kansas City (ironically led by some guy named John Schuerholz), Turner asked Cox if he’d come back and be the general manager of the Braves and have full authority to make the team a winner.
Cox had a young family, and he still lived in the Atlanta area. So, he made the jump. At the same time, Turner told, not asked, but told Stan Kasten, at the time the successful general manager of Turner’s Atlanta Hawks, to be the Braves President. The combination of Kasten and Cox, along with Scouting Director Paul Snyder, led to a change in the history of the Atlanta Braves.
Long-known as a hitting team, mainly because of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium being a home run haven, Cox instead wanted to make the Braves all about pitching. He drafted pitchers more than ever before. If he made a trade, a pitcher would always be acquired. That decision led to the Braves becoming great in 1991, and the history of the franchise changed forever.
But if Turner had not realized that his involvement, as direct as what George Steinbrenner did in New York with the Yankees, was not working and that he needed to back away, all of that success we’ve enjoyed the last 35 years may have never happened.
In 1995, Turner hoisted the World Series trophy when Atlanta beat Cleveland in six games. That process all started with his moves a decade earlier. It was the most consequential decision in the history of state of Georgia sports – the return of Cox and the addition of Kasten to the Braves front office. It changed the Braves from a joke of a franchise to the winning team we still see to this day.
That’s why when the new stadium opened in 1996 after the Olympics, Kasten decided to name it Turner Field, to honor Ted’s contributions to the Braves. He deserved that honor.
Turner’s empire, Turner Broadcasting, later merged with Time Warner. Then a few years later, it merged with AOL, which was a disaster. Turner was edged out, or fired as he claimed. The Braves and Hawks were sold, and it’s now so corporate that it is just not the same as it was when Ted owned, and cared, about the team.
Ted made his mark with the Hawks, as well. When Kasten worked out a trade to acquire former Georgia star Dominique Wilkins, the Utah Jazz needed $1 million dollars as part of the deal. Kasten asked Turner, struggling financially with CNN at the time, if he could make the trade. Turner said he’d get the money, somehow, someway, and he did. Wilkins went on to become the best player in Hawks history.
Turner first aired SEC football games on cable television. Remember Bob Neal and Tim Foley doing SEC games on Saturdays on TBS? Neal also hosted a one-of-a-kind NFL show on Saturday nights from the Stadium Club called “Football Saturday on TBS.” It included Paul Hornung, Alec Hawkins, and former Falcons coach Norm Van Brocklin. It was way before its time in football programming.
When the United States and the Soviet Union were boycotting the Olympics in the 1980s, Turner started the Goodwill Games. After he started TNT in the late-1980s, Turner went after the cable deal for the NBA, and it was on that network until last season. The first Sunday night NFL broadcast was on TNT.
And before ESPN’s SportsCenter became the show to watch, CNN Sports Tonight with Nick Charles and Fred Hickman was the sports highlights show. Yes, in the first 20 years of CNN, they aired sports highlights, not just people yelling at each other.
Turner’s accomplishments are incredible. No one can even come close to the impact he’s had on sports in the state of Georgia. How many times have you heard someone say, “I sure do wish Ted still owned the Braves.” That’s because he was accountable. He was a man of the people. He would talk to the fans. Fans knew he wanted the team to win, just like they did. Now, corporate ownership has infested the Braves and their shopping mall, and there is no accountability at all.
And, yes, Turner even inspired me to name my radio stations as The SuperStations. It’s all about Georgia sports, so it kind of fit, don’t you think? I did it to pay homage to Turner and what we all grew up watching when we became Braves and Hawks fans.
Ted had one hell of a life. He was an innovator, a larger-than-life character. He changed television, but he changed Georgia sports, as well. We should all be thankful for what he did for us sports fans in the state of Georgia.
Listen to The Bill Shanks Show on The SuperStations – 104.3 FM in Savannah and online at TheSuperStations.com. Email Bill atTheBillShanksShow@yahoo.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News:Ted Turner left indelible mark on Georgia as Braves, Hawks owner
