The 1978 Atlanta Braves season was the 108th season for the franchise and their 13th in Atlanta. Offseason December 8, 1977: Willie Montañez was traded by the Braves to the New York Mets as part of a four-team trade. Adrian Devine, Tommy Boggs, and Eddie Miller were traded by the Texas Rangers to the Braves. The Rangers sent Bert Blyleven to the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the Mets sent John Milner to the Pirates. The Rangers sent Tom Grieve and a player to be named later to the Mets. The Pirates sent Al Oliver and Nelson Norman to the Rangers, and the Mets sent Jon Matlack to the Rangers. The Rangers completed the trade by sending Ken Henderson to the Mets on March 15, 1978. March 30, 1978: Buzz Capra was released by the Atlanta Braves. Managerial turnover: Bobby Cox begins his first term In May 1977, owner Ted Turner had stunned baseball when—in the midst of a 16-game losing streak—he furloughed manager Dave Bristol, sent him on a ten-day scouting trip, and took the reins of the team himself; on May 11, he donned uniform #27 and skippered the Braves to their 17th straight loss. National League president Chub Feeney and Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn then stepped in and forbade the owner from managing his own ballclub, citing MLB rules that apparently took effect after Connie Mack retired as owner-manager of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1950. Veteran coach Vern Benson ran the Braves the following night (and broke the losing skein), and then Bristol was rehired for the balance of the season. However, that chaotic season was followed by one of the most important events in Braves' history: the hiring of Bobby Cox, briefly a Braves' farm system player, as manager for 1978. Cox was then a 36-year-old, relatively unknown former third baseman who had spent the previous ten seasons in the New York Yankees' organization, including six years (1971–1976) as a highly successful minor league manager and one season as the first-base coach on the Yankees' 1977 world championship team. Cox would spend four seasons, 1978–1981, during this first term in the Braves' dugout. While his first two years produced frustrating, last-place seasons in the National League West, by Cox' third year, , the Braves posted a winning (81–80) mark and rose to fourth place in their division. Attendance began to climb, with the team exceeding the one-million