“I remember coming in from Atlanta, going home, and thinking I wouldn’t be around anymore.“My contract was up. We had a bad season. And if things had stayed the course, I guarantee I would have been gone."Instead, it was Coppolella who was gone.Coppolella was fired a day after the season when an MLB investigation discovered that he blatantly violated international prospect signing rules.

He received a lifetime ban from baseball one month later, which was rescinded in 2023.Now, given a brief reprieve, Snitker still had to sit around for five weeks awaiting his fate when Alex Anthopoulos was hired Nov. 13, 2017, to be Atlanta’s new GM.The first time Snitker ever met Anthopoulos was at his press conference. He had no idea whether Anthopoulos would keep him.Anthopoulos reached out to several GMs, in particular Hall of Fame executive Pat Gillick, asking their advice. Should he let everyone go coming into a new organization and bring in his own people?

Or does he wait, giving him time to make his own evaluations?“Pat is someone I looked up to a lot and when he changed clubs," Anthopoulos said, “you never saw him make wholesale changes and bring in a lot of new people. You saw him bring in a scout or two, but you never saw him get rid of everybody.“So I was predisposed to not making changes unless there were real obvious reasons. I wanted to give Snit more time.

Besides, everybody had good things to say about Snit.”Snitker stayed. Atlanta won the NL East in 2018. Then again in 2019.

And again and again and again and again. Atlanta won six consecutive division titles, reached the postseason seven consecutive times, and was the World Series champion in 2021.Six months after retiring as Atlanta’s manager, Snitker received the organization’s highest honor Saturday when he was inducted into its Hall of Fame.Oh, what a little patience can do for a legacy.“It was a pre-arranged marriage," Anthopoulos said. “You have no idea how it’s going to go.

But I was so grateful that when I walked into the Braves organization, I had him. It wasn’t a coincidence that Hank Aaron hired him, and Bobby Cox channeled him to manage. He’s a steward of the Braves.“We don’t do any of this without Snit as our manager.

He made me better. He made all of us better. In terms of trust, character and integrity, you’re not going to find anyone better.

Even our first year together, when he’s on the last year of his deal, he never once even hinted about his job security. He never ran from anything. He dealt with a lot of adversity, injuries, and everything else, and he always stayed the course.“Snit was always Snit.

I love this man."Snitker, 70, never had to wonder about his job security ever again. When the 2022 season ended, Anthopoulos quietly gave him an eight-year contract extension. It would include three years as a manager and five years as a senior advisor.And Saturday night, with 150 friends, relatives and even high-school teammates on hand to celebrate Snitker, he looks back and wonders how life would be so different if Anthopoulos didn’t have patience to see if he was the right man for the job.This is why Snitker is perturbed, with Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora being fired after their 10-17 start, with four others on the hot seat, and worries for his friends.Carlos Mendoza of the New York Mets, Rob Thomson of the Philadelphia Phillies, Joe Espada of the Houston Astros and Matt Quataro of the Kansas City Royals already are hearing rumors and speculation that their jobs could be in serious jeopardy.Snitker can’t believe it.It’s April.The season is three weeks old.Teams still have 135 games remaining.And you want them fired now?“I just hate hearing it, really, for everybody involved,” said Snitker, who heard the same rumors about himself during the World Series year in 2021 when the team was stull under .500 in early June.

“It’s such a long season. I look at the Mets. I look at Phillies. I know things aren’t clicking for them.

But when you can weather storms like that, something is good on other side.”There’s no need to look any further back than 2019 when the Washington Nationals were 19-31, and manager Davey Martinez was expected to be fired at any moment, paying the price for the struggles of a team that had World Series aspirations.It didn’t matter that All-Stars Juan Soto, Trea Turner and Anthony Rendon were on the IL. Or that Cy Young winner Max Scherzer was struggling with a 3.