The Weekend Buzz while you were taking parenting lessons from Alec Baldwin ...

1. Brave (and timeless) man: When Bobby Cox started managing the Atlanta Braves in 1990, Frank Robinson was still piloting the Baltimore Orioles, Sparky Anderson was still in Detroit, Tom Kelly in Minnesota and Tony La Russa in Oakland.

Bobby Cox still has plenty of fire in his belly, as he gets ejected on Sunday vs. the Mets. (AP)

It was four stops ago for Lou Piniella, who managed Cincinnati to a World Series title that year. It was a season of transition in St. Louis, where Whitey Herzog, Red Schoendienst and Joe Torre each managed the Cardinals. And four current teams (Florida, Colorado, Arizona and Tampa Bay) didn't even exist.

Point is, Cox has become as much Atlanta as Coca-Cola, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and CNN.

And that's only Cox's second tour of duty managing Atlanta.

When his first with Atlanta started in 1978, CNN didn't even exist.

Which brings up the other point: In a week in which the Braves extended their manager's contract through the 2008 season, and following a weekend in which the Braves took two of three from the New York Mets to move back into first place in the NL East, it's become nearly impossible to imagine anybody else in the Atlanta manager's chair.

"It's Bobby's team, man," says 300-game winner Greg Maddux, who, since his years in Atlanta, has pitched for the Cubs, Dodgers and now the Padres. "He's the best.

"He's been doing it, and he's the best at it. I loved playing for him. I have a tremendous amount of respect for how he treated me and the other players."

Thanks in no small part to a stronger bullpen and the steady hand of their manager, the Braves have won four of six from the Mets to send a strong signal that things maybe -- maybe -- haven't changed as radically as last summer's third-place finish might suggest.

Cox turns 66 on May 21, one day will be enshrined in Cooperstown and really will leave one of these days. And then the players in the home clubhouse will be forced to adjust to a new manager.

"I'm sure the guys there hope not," former Atlanta second baseman Marcus Giles says. "He's a great manager. You never want to see him leave. I'm sure everyone there hopes he stays the rest of his career."

After '08, Cox still isn't quite sure what the future holds. But let's just say that nobody is expecting this baseball lifer to be looking for an exit even then. As Chipper Jones told David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "I don't see him driving his tractor 365 days a year out on his farm."

2. A-Rod and the Miracle of the Bronx: Alex Rodriguez's most impressive feat this season isn't smashing 12 home runs in the Yankees' first 15 games. It's taking what everyone thought were some of the game's most intelligent fans and revealing them as a bunch of impatient, front-running, spoiled and petulant know-nothings.

In the midst of this home run barrage, Yankee Stadium fans had the temerity to boo Rodriguez twice Thursday when Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona fanned him (first and third innings) before he came back to win the game with a walk-off three-run homer.

As we speak, gemologists are inventing a new mood ring color: Bronx Fuschia, for Sybil-like personality disorders provoked by unrealistic expectations and foaming-at-the-mouth frustrations that carry over into other areas of life.

3. They were better in the snow: It's up to nine consecutive scheduled games and counting played by the Seattle Mariners after five of their first 10 were rained or snowed out. And on second thought, watching SpectraVision in the hotel rooms while the weather rages outside isn't such a bad option: The Mariners' loss Sunday in Anaheim was their sixth in a row.

Makeup games from the wiped-out four-game series in Cleveland April 6-9 remain in negotiations. Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi confirmed this weekend that some of them could be made up in Seattle when the Mariners play host to the Indians the last week of September.

Meantime, difficult to say how much of Seattle's difficulties are a direct result of the layoff, but the Angels, who swept the Mariners over the weekend, played their series with Cleveland in Milwaukee. It wasn't optimal, but at least they played. What concerns Bavasi now is that his team is at a competitive disadvantage.

"The foresight used for the Angels' series benefited them," Bavasi says. "The same kind of foresight would have benefited us."

Because of their remote location in the Pacific Northwest, the Mariners usually lead the league in air miles.

"This is not a welcome thing," Bavasi says. "But you can't complain about it. It's weather. That's the one thing that Al Capone wouldn't bet on."

4. Boston goes Green: Flipped on the television Friday and thought the Notre Dame football team had come charging out to play in Fenway Park. The Red Sox in green tops in a tribute to the Boston Celtics and Red Auerbach? Still trying to confirm that it was Coco Crisp, and not Rudy, who was instrumental in the ninth-inning beating of Yanks closer Mariano Rivera.

5. Piniella, party of five, your table is ready at Gino's East: So after spending six weeks this spring converting Alfonso Soriano to center field, the Cubs, in a pure Cub move, pull the plug after three weeks and zero Soriano homers in the regular season. Afraid that the move is affecting his hitting, they'll plop Sori back in left field when he returns from his leg injury this week.

And I hope you saw this quip from Piniella over the weekend, following an argument with the umpires that carried into the tunnels in Wrigley Field after Friday's game: "You know, they try to do their jobs and I try to do mine. We were just exchanging pleasantries in the runway. They told me where their dinner reservations were and I told them where mine were. That's the end of it."

6. Washington: Nationals, or Generals? Nineteen games in, the hapless Nats have yet to score a run in the first inning of any game, equaling the 1975 Cincinnati Reds' streak of first-inning futility Sunday. Prediction: These Nats will not find themselves on the wrong end of a Carlton Fisk home run wave during a World Series game this October.

7. Charlie Manuel and the radio man: If the Philly radio guy who started a fight with the skipper had real cojones, he'd instead go pick on Brett Myers, who was arrested in Boston last summer for allegedly pummeling his wife on the streets of Boston. He'd have to go to the bullpen to locate him, though -- after signing Myers to a three-year, $25.75 million deal, the Phillies have so little faith in Tom Gordon and their pen that they've made Myers a set-up man.

8. Old Man Stanton: In Cincinnati, lefty Mike Stanton on Sunday passed John Franco and moved into second place all-time by making the 1,120nd appearance of his career. Matt Belisle, who started Sunday's game for the Reds, was only 9 when Stanton made his major league debut. Word has it that Belisle missed Stanton's debut at the time because he was watching Batman and eating graham crackers.

9. Tiger, Tiger, not burning so bright: Key Detroit set-up man Fernando Rodney falls to 1-4 with a 7.88 ERA, and Tigers manager Jim Leyland is concerned. Might be time to put Rodney on colleague Joel Zumaya's Guitar Hero training program.

10. Blue Jays' blue ways: Reduced to bird seed with injuries to closer B.J. Ryan, outfielder Reed Johnson and third baseman Troy Glaus, Toronto suffers its first three-game sweep in Baltimore since 1994. With Yankees Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano, Chien-Ming Wang and Hideki Matsui also on the shelf, it's time to move in Boston. At least, it had better be.