This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ATLANTA — Terry Pendleton is one of the most influential Braves of all time. Along with helping turn the franchise around during his 1991 National League MVP season, he has spent the past 25 years serving as an incredibly valuable coach and instructor throughout the organization.
TP is also one of the best human beings you will ever encounter. It’s never been about him. So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when he informed me he recently retired and then made sure we kept the focus on Andruw Jones before possibly doing a story on him next week.
Pendleton’s duties as a special assistant in Atlanta’s player development department might be complete. But the 65-year-old baseball lifer looks forward to continuing to enrich the baseball world with his great knowledge and wonderful stories, like the one about the day Willie Mays had a jaw-dropping compliment for Jones.
When Jones was elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame on Tuesday, he acknowledged that Mays had once told him he was the best defensive center fielder he had seen. But Pendleton provided a little more clarity to the story, which occurred while he was serving as Atlanta’s hitting coach.
“We were playing the Giants in San Francisco and we went out to watch them finish up their BP to talk to Barry [Bonds]. Willie Mays just happened to be out there that evening. We’re all standing around the cage talking while the Giants are finishing up their last couple of rounds of hitting. Now, this is not something somebody told me. This is something I heard myself.
“Willie Mays and I are talking about different things that have happened with swings and players and all this stuff. And Willie turns to Andruw Jones and says, ‘Hey kid, listen, I want to tell you something.’ We all looked because Willie Mays was talking. All conversations ended there because we’re listening and learning. And he turns to Andruw and says, ‘Listen, you’re the best center fielder I’ve ever seen play this game.’
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, the best has just told Andruw he was the best he’s ever seen.’ For that to come out of Willie Mays’ mouth, that is special.”
Jones’ election to the Baseball Hall of Fame was truly special for the Braves community. And it was cool to hear Brian Snitker say how excited he could tell Bobby Cox was when he called him to discuss the election results. Cox’s communication skills remain limited following a 2019 stroke, but Snitker could tell his Hall of Fame mentor was beaming with joy.
“There’s never been bigger Braves fans than Gator [Ralph Garr], Knucksie [Phil Niekro] and Andruw,” Snitker said. “That was a great day for so many people associated with the Braves.”
Pendleton has the unique honor of saying he was with the 1996 Braves when Jones debuted, and he was with the 1998 Royals when Carlos Beltrán, this year’s other HOF electee, debuted. But the brotherhood he still shares with Jones was primarily formed while served as the center fielder’s hitting coach with Atlanta from 2002-07.
“There were days I wanted to kill him when I was a hitting coach, but that stubbornness in him is also what made him so darn good,” Pendleton said. “Any of those Hall of Famers, they had to have some cocky confidence in them to get where they got. Some show it in different ways. Andruw is just one of those kids. He had that cocky confidence about him. Andruw didn’t talk a lot. Then, as he got older, he did. There were days I wanted to shut his mouth. But I love him dearly.”
What were some examples of this stubbornness? Well, how about when Jones wanted to make significant changes to his swing after he had his great 51-homer season in 2005? And there were other stretches where the 10-time Gold Glover wouldn’t agree to make adjustments until he was a couple weeks into a slump.
“There were times where I tried to get him to stop doing things, and he was just stubborn,” Pendleton said. “I would get so frustrated with him. Chipper [Jones] would go, ‘Hey, just leave him alone. He’s about to come to you. Just leave him alone. Let him go and do what he’s doing.’ Finally, sooner or later, Andruw would walk into the clubhouse and he’d be yelling from one side to the other, ‘TP, TP, you want to go hit in the cage?’ I was like, ‘Why do we have to go from .280 to .250 before trying to figure out what was going on?’”
Now Pendleton can just laugh about these kinds of experiences.
“He’s like a little brother to me,” Pendleton said.
That’s kind of how Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Fred McGriff viewed the great outfielder, who was just 19 when he became their teammate. But now they just know him as a fellow Hall of Famer.
