There will be thousands of fans tuning in for the Atlanta Braves' season opener this week who were not yet born when Russ Nixon was fired June 22, 1990, and there will be tens of thousands who have no memories of any Braves manager not named Bobby Cox.
It's OK to admit it. It's going to be strange to not see Cox's No. 6 in the Braves' dugout this season.
Cox took the Braves from perennial cellar-dwellars to the longest string of consecutive postseason appearances in baseball history.
Thursday, when the Braves take the field against Washington, Fredi Gonzalez will officially replace Cox, but the new skipper does not change the course.
"Nothing that's going to cause culture shock," third baseman Chipper Jones told USA Today this spring. "You've got two similar personalities with Bobby and Fredi. The goals don't change because the manager changes."
Of course those goals - playing well, making the postseason, winning the World Series - are the same. Those goals are the same for every manager and each player as another baseball season opens this week.
The pressure, though, changes from club to club and from situation to situation, and no manager has bigger shoes to fill than Gonzalez.
Across the South every summer, there are two jobs that most people think they know how to do well. People believe they are good at their job, and they believe would be good at managing the Braves.
There always was second-guessing, the hand-wringing about letting this pitcher stay a hitter too long or putting in that pinch-hitter (Why Greg Norton got as many chances as he did was a mystery from Macon to Meridan to Maryville).
But Cox knew. Cox always knew, and no matter what came his way, his first goal was to protect the players and let them play. His way was successful, there's no doubt. The production, though, is more important than the path for Gonzalez, who must stay true to the club's tradition but find his own voice and his own method and his mannerisms.
How quickly Gonzalez finds his stride - and we're not talking about Cox's slow-motion waddle to the mound and back - will be as big a key for this team's long-term success as anything that happens on the field.
How he handles winning streaks that will surely come with a roster this talented and the losing streaks that will surely come in a game this fickle will be telling.
Gonzalez can't be Cox - not that anyone expects that - but when he finds his place in Atlanta's dugout, this team could be special. Whether Gonzalez finds that stride in April or May 2012 or even at all is the question.
Let the second-guessing begin across the South.