Pirates’ Clint Hurdle still heeds former Braves’ manager Bobby Cox’s advice on newspapers

Through most of the previous decade, Hurdle, 61, was the manager of the Colorado Rockies and Cox, who suffered a stroke Tuesday at the age of 77, was winding down a 29-year managerial career.

“He pulled me aside one day,” Hurdle said. “He said, ‘I like what you’re doing with your club. I like the players. I like the effort.

“ ‘I need to ask you a question: Do you read the papers?’

“I said, ‘Absolutely.’

“So, you read what’s written about you?” Cox said.

“Yeah,” Hurdle responded. “I have to make sure they get it right.”

Cox told Hurdle that wasn’t necessary.

“You don’t need to trust them,” Cox said. “They’re going to write whatever they want to write. To get caught up in that … Son, I did it for years. If they write good about you, you feel good. They write bad about you, you want to fight.

“So what’s the answer?” Hurdle wanted to know.

“Stop reading the newspaper.”

And so Hurdle did, and he’s been true to Cox’s advice for the past 15 years.

“It makes a world of difference,” Hurdle said. “I don’t really need to know the narrative. As soon as you go back (to reading), we’re humans, we care. I do have that gene where I like people to like me.”

Hurdle said he might return to reading newspapers when he retires.

“I’ve gotten pretty good at not doing it,” he said. “I can find world news other places. I look at it now, it’s none of my business.”

Hurdle said he first became aware of Cox, who played third base briefly for the New York Yankees, in the late 1960s. Hurdle’s father was a Yankees fan.

“So much professional respect from afar,” Hurdle said of Cox, who won 2,504 games as a manager and led the Atlanta Braves to the 1995 World Series championship.

When Hurdle was the National League manager in the 2008 All-Star Game, he had his trainer call Cox for advice as the nearly five-hour game was headed toward a record 15 innings.

Cox’s response: “You’ll figure it out, kid. I’m just enjoying this glass of wine.”

Hurdle’s favorite story about Cox, who was ejected from a baseball-record 161 games, involved the former manager’s interaction one day with Hurdle’s daughter Maddie.

“We were walking out of Coors Field,” Hurdle said. “He comes out the same time Karla (Hurdle’s wife) and I and Maddie (now 16) are walking out. He bent down, rubbed her head and said, ‘You want to walk me out?’

“He holds her hand, and they walk. When he gets to where he was going, he said, ‘Maddie, I want to thank you. You’re the first person I’ve walked with that walks the same speed I do in the past 10 years.’ ”