Cox Isn’t Thrilled by Move : Baseball: His return to managing--against Padres, and a guy who has been there before, Jack McKeon--is postponed by rain after Braves fire Russ Nixon.

Bobby Cox turned his shoulder Friday afternoon and looked at the clock on his office wall. It was 3:30. He said he didn’t feel real good.

He didn’t look real good.

Instead of a man celebrating his return as manager of the Atlanta Braves--their game against the Padres was subsequently rained out--he looked like a man condemned.

He didn’t want this job. He didn’t want any manager’s job. He already has seen two marriages crumble during his previous managing days in Atlanta and Toronto, and he’s fearful about what might now happen to his third.

Besides, who in their right mind would want to put on a uniform every afternoon and take all of the abuse a manager takes after you have been in the air-conditioned climate of a glass-enclosed general manager’s box.

But Cox didn’t have a choice, just as Jack McKeon didn’t have a choice two years ago with the Padres.

“Maybe I could have turned it down,” Cox said, “but I also know that when a club asks you to do something, you should do it. It’s like you have a choice, but you really don’t, you know what I mean?

“I didn’t want to do this. It’s upsetting when somebody fails below you. It’s the same if you failed.

“Obviously, things haven’t worked out here, and something had to be done.”

Cox tried his best not to fire Manager Russ Nixon. But when your boss, Stan Kasten, tells you that Nixon is going and asks you to move down to the field, what are you going to do?

The decision to fire Nixon was one of the most-predicted ousters since another Nixon decided to leave the White House.

“I’ve been expecting it,” Nixon said from his home in Atlanta. “It’s been evident the last two weeks.

“One of the bullets was going to get me.

“They’ve been shooting too many at me.”

To be honest, Nixon said, he knew he was going to be fired last December. That was when the National League managers assembled at the winter meetings in Nashville, Tenn., for their annual group picture.

Managers, a superstitious bunch, elbowed each other trying to get away from Dodger Manager Tommy Lasorda. You see, for whatever reason, whoever has been to the right of Lasorda in the picture was gone the following year.

Let’s see, there was Chuck Tanner, who was fired in 1987 by the Braves . . . Hal Lanier, who was fired by the Houston Astros in 1988 . . . and Pete Rose, who was banned from baseball in 1989.

After jockeying for position for several minutes, Nixon stood next to Lasorda and said, “Ah, what the hell. I’m already gone.”

Of course, when you compile a 130-216 record in 25 months on the job, no amount of superstition is going to help you.

The Braves own the worst record in the National League at 25-40. In fact, Nixon never was able to bring the Braves out of last during his two-year stay. They finished last in 1988, after he took over May 22. They finished last in 1989. And unless there’s a dramatic change, they’re going to finish last again.

But considering the talent the Braves have on the roster, Casey Stengel or Joe McCarthy might not have been able to make a winner out of this team.

“This just confirms my suspicions,” Nixon said, “it’s a horse. . . organization. This is just a soap opera for TBS is what it is.”

Nixon, who slammed three bundles of his fan mail into the clubhouse trash bin for his final act before leaving the Braves’ offices Friday morning, said he’ll have much more to say about the firing today at a press conference at his home.

Sound a little familiar?

It was just 25 months ago, on May 28, 1988, that Larry Bowa was fired as the Padre manager, and he, too, cut loose with venomous remarks about his former organization.

And on the eve of his firing, it was McKeon who was asked by Padre President Chub Feeney to take over the manager’s job, although he was perfectly content as vice president/baseball operations.

Sources inside the Padre organization say that the only reason the job was offered to McKeon was so that he could fail, giving Feeney a reason to fire him. Now, the same is being said about Cox.

Cox, in the final year of a five-year, $2-million contract, was not provided an extension upon accepting the job as manager. Of course, neither was McKeon.

“Basically, I was the one who put together the team,” McKeon said, “so I was the one who had to make it work. I thought they were better than the way they were playing, and I proved I was right.

Indeed, the Padres promptly went on a 67-48 roll the rest of the season, playing .583 baseball. Instead of being fired, McKeon was rewarded with a three-year, $1.2-million contract extension.

Now, it’s Cox’s turn to prove the team he put together is better than it has shown. If he’s successful, he will be invited back, but probably only as manager. The general manager duties, Cox figures, likely will be abandoned at the end of the season.

“Almost certainly, he’ll have one job at the end of season,” Kasten says, “but not both.”

Said Cox: “I don’t want to do both, anyway. There’s just too much time involved. The hours and frustrations of being a general manager are difficult enough as it is.”

Just ask McKeon. He accepted the additional responsibilities as vice president/baseball operations at the 1989 winter meetings without a pay increase, and now it’s a continuous battle to balance both jobs within his time constraints.

“The biggest problem about doing both is that you just don’t have time,” McKeon said. “I’m lucky I have Bill (Beck, his assistant), but I just don’t have enough time to stay in touch with everybody. You’ve got enough worries in the clubhouse, trying to put out fires and trying to get guys to play up to their level”

Tom Werner, the Padre chairman and general managing partner, already has had several discussions with McKeon about possessing both jobs, and they are scheduled to talk again before the end of the season. McKeon says he’ll do whatever Werner and the new ownership group desires, but sources say that if he is given a choice, McKeon will go back to the front office.

“I don’t even know what I’ll do,” McKeon said, “that’ll be determined later. I just wish the best for Bobby. It’s probably going to take a couple of weeks for him to get comfortable. “It’s easy to stay upstairs and say this or that, but once you’re downstairs and have to make those decisions, it’s difficult.

“It’s also tough seeing someone get fired, but that’s the way the game goes. It’s not like you’re in the banking business, or you’re in the insurance business, or you’re an accountant. If the club’s not going, somebody has to be fired.”

It’s a burden that now belongs to Cox.

Padre Notes

The Padres and Braves will make up their postponed game Aug. 7 as part of a twilight doubleheader. It will mean 32 games in 32 days for the Padres . . . Padre starter Dennis Rasmussen still is experiencing tightness in his left shoulder and would have been replaced Friday by Mike Dunne if a game had been played. Ed Whitson instead will start tonight against the Braves. Rasmussen is scheduled Tuesday in Houston, and Dunne is scheduled Wednesday in Houston. . . . Three members of the Las Vegas Stars will play in the triple-A All-Star game in Las Vegas July 11. Third baseman Eddie Williams is the lone starter. Also making the team were outfielder Thomas Howard and pitcher Terry Gilmore.