Jack McKeon Returns as Interim Manager

[Flum]

I cap my tip too. Usually at 12 percent. I'm jewish, you know.

[Ramp]

Marlins on front of espn.com
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How long has that cigar-store legend, Jack McKeon, been managing in the big leagues? Here's how long:

The first time he managed a major league game -- way back on April 6, 1973 -- five future big league managers (Lou Piniella, Bobby Valentine, Frank Robinson, Hal McRae and Cookie Rojas) played in it.

The youngest player in McKeon's lineup that day (John Mayberry) is now 62 years old.

His fellow managers back then included Walter Alston, Ralph Houk, Gene Mauch and Leo Durocher.

And not a single player on the roster of the Marlins team McKeon managed Monday night had made his debut yet -- on Planet Earth.

So nobody quite like Jack McKeon has set foot in a manager's office in this millennium. That we know. What we don't know -- what nobody knows -- is whether he's the cure for the historic collapse of the Florida Marlins.

Just 22 days ago, the Marlins rolled into June at nine games over .500 (31-22). They had a better record than the Red Sox, the Braves, the Brewers or the Yankees. Three weeks later, the Fish are nine games under .500 (32-41). Their manager (Edwin Rodriguez) quit and went home. And they've done something no team in the history of baseball had ever done:

In their past 20 games, they've gone 1-19. And, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, no team had ever gone through a 20-game stretch that bad after being nine games or more over .500 when the streak began.

Youch.

[+] Enlarge
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Are the youthful Marlins ready for Jack McKeon's old-school approach to managing?
So what's an 80-year-old guy doing walking into a mess like this? The answer is simple:

• The Marlins needed somebody with no aspirations to do this job long term. And even though McKeon quipped Monday that he would like to manage 'til he's 95, he wasn't exactly pressing for a 10-year contract.

• They also needed somebody who could move into the job immediately. And nobody on their list had a more wide-open schedule than McKeon.

• And McKeon fit in every other way: He was already on the payroll. He knew what he was getting himself into. He'd been around these players in spring training. And he had won a World Series, as the manager of this very franchise.

Oh. And one more thing, said an NL executive who has been a longtime friend of McKeon: "He's a guy who could deliver some messages that need to be delivered and not have to worry about, 'Do I have the backing of the front office?' -- because he doesn't give a crap."

So, it shouldn't shock anybody who has watched McKeon in action that, within an hour of his introductory news conference, he posted the first lineup card of his latest managerial administration -- and Hanley Ramirez's name wasn't on it.

On McKeon's watch, guys who don't think it's mandatory to be on time or run hard to first base are going to get an education on how to play and how to act in the big leagues. And that includes superstar talents with a lot of growing up to do.

Between the quips and the hugs and the clouds of cigar smoke, this is the way McKeon has always done it. In fact, it reminded one former member of McKeon's 2003 Marlins of an equally eye-opening managerial moment in the life of that 2003 team.

"I still remember him pulling Brad Penny out of a game in '03 because he didn't like the way Brad was pitching," said Penny's catcher that day, Mike Redmond. "It was one out before he was going to qualify for a win, and Jack went out and yanked him. I'll never forget it. … You see something like that happen, it wakes you up, man. I remember walking into the dugout after that inning and saying, 'Do you believe that?' He wasn't afraid to send a tough message -- and everyone got it."

But what Penny, Redmond and all those 2003 Marlins learned about McKeon was that the manager could play the tough guy, send those messages and still spread enough love to keep his players on board.

"He was also a guy who could put his arm around you and be confident, be positive," Redmond told Rumblings. "He'd say, 'Don't worry, kid. You're my man.' He'd do that with Luis Castillo, and he didn't even know his name. He called him 'Juan,' and he called Juan Pierre 'Louie.' He never got their names straight. Luis would be hitting, and he'd be yelling, 'C'mon, Juan. Get a hit.' And Juan would be hitting, and he'd yell, 'C'mon, Louie. Get a hit.' But it didn't matter. We all laughed about it. It was a running joke. He called everybody by the wrong name."

So naturally, when McKeon showed up for work for his latest gig this week, he called Mike Stanton "Wally" and called team president David Samson "George." And nobody viewed it as a sign that, at 80, the new manager had lost his fastball. It's just part of the inimitable Jack McKeon nightclub act. And at this point, if he can inspire this team to laugh about anything, in the middle of a 1-19 cliff dive, that can only be a good thing.

We wouldn't advise betting the winter home in Boca that McKeon can do for this team what he did for that '03 outfit, which went from 10 games under .500 to winning a World Series in Yankee Stadium. That team eight years ago was closer both to first place (9 games out rather than 12½) and to the wild-card leader (7 games out instead of 7½) when McKeon took over than this team was. And that team, other than its starting rotation, was older -- with no everyday players younger than 25 -- than this group.

But it was fascinating to hear so many people in baseball predict this week that, even at age 80, McKeon was a great choice for this job. (One typical reaction, from a veteran scout: "I love Jack. I think he pushes that team back in the right direction. They're a lot better than the way they've been playing.")

Even if he can't wave his magic wand and inspire the Marlins to charge back into the race, though, McKeon will still be presiding over as important a 90-game stretch as this franchise has ever played.

In the rest of this season, this team has to build enough momentum to make the South Beach crowd care about the opening of a spectacular new ballpark in April 2012. The only thing riding on it is the future of the franchise.

Jack McKeon won't be the manager when that park opens. He knows it. We know it. In the Marlins' perfect world, he'll be replaced by a much bigger name with a charismatic presence. Ozzie Guillen would be their dream hire. Larry Bowa wouldn't be out of the question. And you can't ever rule out Bobby Valentine as long as owner Jeffrey Loria has a vote.

But until then, this will be Jack McKeon's team and Jack McKeon's show. And, even at 80 years old, we guarantee he'll have the attention of every 20-something in his clubhouse.

"Young guys have to respect him," said Redmond, now managing himself, for Lansing of the Midwest League. "Look at his track record. Look at what he's done in baseball. He's dedicated his whole life to baseball. And he won the World Series. That's all you've got to say. If you don't respect him, you'd better look in the mirror, because that's a reflection of you, not him."

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/column...umblings110621

[THE_REAL_MIBS]

LoMoMarlins: McKeon asked me what I had going on tonite. Told him I was going home 2 play w/ Twitter. He replied "oh, what kind of dog is it?"

/Twitter

[HUGG]

coulda been Bazardowned though

so that was a sideways move at best

Definitely better than the

BAZARDO!
BAZARDO!
HE'S YORMAN!
IF HE CAN'T DO IT,
NO ONE CAN!

shirts I had printed up.

What a waste.

[Miamarlin21]

/Twitter

hahahah.

[emkayseven]

Jack McKeon is back managing the Florida Marlins this year after manager Edwin Rodriguez resigned amid an atrocious June. McKeon, who also took over the 2003 Marlins mid-season before leading them to the World Series, is currently 80 years old. The man is older than Willie Mays and Ernie Banks and a slew of other Hall of Famers, yet he's out there managing. It's pretty remarkable.

McKeon has been a major league manager since 1973, but he was a skipper in the minors for fifteen years before that. In 1962, McKeon took part in an intriguing experiment with the Vancouver Mounties.

"This is XM11495. Bring your pitch in low inside. Watch it, there's a sneak attempt off second."
...
Pitcher George Bamberger took his orders from Manager Jack McKeon, who hid behind the third-base dugout with a radio transmitter. Bamberger listened on a receiver the size of a cigarette package in his shirt pocket."

If someone asked me to guess when pocket-sized radio transmitters were invented, I have no idea what my guess would be. Late-1940s? 1965? 1982? Mid-twentieth century technology is so common in today's world that it's hard to imagine a world without it. But that's apparently what was happening in 1962, when two Vancouver men - Ron Raine and Gordon Hunter - built a pair of radio transmitters that a pitcher and his manager could use. With the blessings of Pacific Coast League President Dewey Soriano and Twins president Calvin Griffith, the Triple-A Mounties gave it a try one late-July night. It was believed to be the first use of similar equipment in organized baseball.

According to the report:

Bamberger did things without looking, disregarding the catcher's signals, throwing at bases without even looking to see if the runner was moving.

(I'm guessing the catcher didn't like receiving pitches he didn't call for.)

The experiment must not have been very noticeable from the field, though. The opposing manager, for instance, didn't learn of McKeon's use of the technology until he saw it in the paper after the game. McKeon, reportedly, said "the idea is great to relieve tension in his young pitchers" and league brass envisioned it eliminating the manager's walk to the mound.

Looking at this experiment with a 21st-century lens, it seems no different than the radios quarterbacks and other football players use on the gridiron. Apparently similar equipment had already been tried in NFL games by 1962, but "jamming by the opposing team - and on one occasion an electrical storm - made it worthless."

It's hard to say how long this experiment lasted. If the equipment was blessed by the league president, then I would expect it to be used as long as the team felt comfortable with it and as long as they felt it was helping them. The thing is, I can see some serious drawbacks from this 1962-era technology. How big was the device? Might it fly out of the uniform? Was the speaker too loud? How good did the microphone work? Was the sound any good? How quickly would immediate updates from the bench upset the pitcher-catcher dynamic? Would the pitcher be forced to rely on it for every pitch? I'm sure there are a dozen more.

In the end, it's just not that great of an idea. That's probably the only reason we need when trying to figure out how the experiment failed. I'm glad to learn that it was tried at least once, though, even if it was fifty years ago (and I'd be very curious to see the actual devices). The fact that new manager Jack McKeon played a big part in it just makes the story that much greater.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...rticleid=14321

[Party]

Jack McKeon = Visionary

[MiamiHomer]

Jack McKeon on winners: "They're like biscuits. When things heat up, they rise to the occasion." #Marlins

[Ramp]

he is on PTI right now
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the Jack/LoMo twitter story was not real

[MiamiHomer]

Who thought it was real?

[Ramp]

ESPN amongst other news outlets

[MiamiHomer]

I mean he said he knew what twitter was in his press conference naming him interim manager. I guess people don't pay attention or know that LoMo makes up a lot of that stuff.

[Mainge]

To be fair, those media outlets don't read all of his stuff like we do.

[MiamiHomer]

They do see the press conference in which he acknowledges knowing what Twitter is that very same day.

[Mainge]

ehe