On a chilly May night in 1977, the Atlanta Braves were in the midst of a nightmare. A 16-game losing streak had fans restless, and owner Ted Turner—never one to sit idly—decided to take matters into his own hands.

Turner, the media visionary who brought us CNN and turned the Braves into "America's Team," had purchased the club just a year earlier. But the 1977 season was a disaster from the start. After a brutal doubleheader loss on May 10, Turner called manager Dave Bristol and told him to take a few days off. The question was: who would step in?

Turner himself, of course.

That night, he walked into the visitors' dugout at Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium wearing a Braves uniform with No. 27 on his back. The owner was now the manager, at least for one game. In his autobiography "Call Me Ted," Turner admitted he was winging it. "I didn't know the signs," he wrote, "so I had to sit next to one of the other coaches, and when I thought we should steal or bunt, I'd have to tell him so he could relay the signal."

The Braves lost that night, 2-1, extending their losing streak to 17 games. Turner's managerial debut was also his swan song. League rules quickly caught up with him: owners weren't allowed to manage their own teams. A telegram from the National League put an end to the experiment, and Bristol returned to finish the season.

But Turner's legacy with the Braves was just beginning. He went on to hire a future Hall of Fame manager, Bobby Cox, and together they built a dynasty that culminated in a 1995 World Series championship. For one night, though, the man who changed sports television took his place in the dugout—and gave baseball a story it would never forget.