When Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox match up for the last time in regular-season play in a four-game set beginning tonight in Atlanta, we will see something we may never see again.

It certainly will be the last time for a long time in which two managers who have more than 5,000 regular-season wins will oppose each other. La Russa doesn't dwell too long on such items, but he allowed that it's "pretty significant."

It will also be the first time this will have happened because when Cox and the Braves were in St. Louis at the end of April, the two managers were just shy of 5,000 regular-season victories.

Cox, who has announced his retirement at the end of the season, had 2,492 wins and La Russa had 2,624 victories before Wednesday. Cox is fourth on the all-time list and La Russa third.

The two men ahead of them, Connie Mack (3,731) and John McGraw (2,763), have been gone for many years. Joe Torre, who was fifth with 2,315, may well retire at the end of the season at age 70, so if he and La Russa never met in regular-season play again, there is no other combination on the horizon that could approach 5,000 regular-season victories.

La Russa and Cox have benefited from "longevity and good fortune," La Russa said.

La Russa, who first took note of Cox's brilliance when the former was with the Chicago White Sox and Cox with Toronto in the early 1980s, said, "I admire him. On a scale of 10, he's 10. Personally, for sure. Professionally. Because he goes about it exactly right.

"He tries to beat you. They play really hard and intensely to do that. But no dirty tricks. No cheap shots. But he's there to beat you. That's why they put the two teams on the field.

"He's had a career, though. He's won a lot more than I have."

Cox had 13 consecutive division titles with the Braves. In head-to-head action with La Russa's teams, Cox has a 105-78 edge, counting two postseason series, although the Cardinals swept four games from the Braves in April.