Welcome to Verducci’s View, a new weekly baseball newsletter from Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci. Every Monday, Tom will empty out his notebook over email and cover MLB’s hottest topics, provide in-depth analysis through both text and video breakdowns, look forward to what’s worth watching during the week and more. This week, we’re focusing on the late Bobby Cox, Cody Bellinger's new groove and more.

Everything—a horse, a vine—is created for some duty ... For what task, then, were you yourself created?”

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

The soul of baseball is there if you know where to look. In Atlanta, whether it was at the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium or Turner Field, you followed the whiff of cigar smoke down a narrow concrete tunnel and took a sharp left into a tiny room before you reached the home dugout. A small television was always tuned to a weather channel, even on the most cloudless of days.…