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Jack McKeon Article

Fish Tank Frenzy

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Fish Tank Frenzy Marlin

Fish Tank Frenzy

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Posted

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/13483138.htm

 

ELON, N.C. - When you think about it, Jack McKeon and Santa Claus have a lot in common.

 

Both are short, jolly (usually), sport shocks of snow-white hair and are hopelessly old school. (You know anyone else who still travels by sleigh?)

 

And neither, apparently, is ready to retire.

 

''Santa Claus still comes,'' McKeon said, explaining why he insisted on waiting until this morning to gather three of his four children and six of his nine grandchildren -- the youngest of which is 9 -- around the Christmas tree to open presents.

 

And if Santa, who has to be pushing 200, can still wiggle down chimneys every December, McKeon, at 75, figures age is no reason he can't coach or manage a baseball team again this summer.

 

''I'm in baseball,'' said McKeon, who has spent most of his life in the game. ``That's my job.''

 

Or at least was his job. In October, less than two years after leading the Marlins to their second World Series title, McKeon stepped down as manager and accepted a position as special advisor to owner Jeffrey Loria.

 

Three months later, he still doesn't know what that means.

 

''[Jeffrey] hasn't said anything yet,'' McKeon said. ``I guess I'll come to spring training and look at some players. That's as far as I know what I'll be doing.''

 

But that's a little like asking Santa for his views on Toys ''R'' Us. Two decades ago, McKeon joined the front office of a franchise that had one winning record in 11 years; four years later, the Padres were in the World Series.

 

Three seasons ago he took over as manager of a franchise that had one winning season in 10 years; four months later the Marlins won the World Series.

 

Now he's supposed to be content watching players someone else acquired and someone else will manage? Might as well just pull that black rocking chair out of the corner of McKeon's living room and have him sit there instead.

 

And that, he promises, will never happen.

 

''I'm a turnaround specialist,'' said McKeon, the most successful manager in Marlins history. ``I would probably like evaluating talent or being on the field. I wouldn't mind being a bench coach. Something I can do where I don't have to sit around and make a lot of reports out.

 

``So if someone calls, I'll listen. I'll go back.''

 

? ? ?

 

McKeon has always been an early riser -- something that, during the baseball season, worked to his advantage by giving him more hours each day to plot strategy.

 

Now, however, it's a curse because, after morning Mass and a short workout at the local YMCA, he's back home before noon with little to fill the rest of the day.

 

Most people dream of retirement. Jack McKeon loathes the idea.

 

''He's antsy. He's bored,'' said his wife Carol who, after 51 years of marriage, has been with him longer than anything except baseball. ``He knows how to do nothing around the house. He can't even turn the fireplace on.

 

``He needs to go outside and do something.''

 

Home, by the way, is a 6,300-square-foot custom-built house on 15 acres that includes a lake a little bit northwest of Raleigh, N.C. But in the winter, when it's too cold to fish and the grass doesn't need mowing, it can feel as claustrophobic as a hotel-room closet.

 

''You've got to remember, from 10 o'clock in the morning until midnight, that was my work day. Now I come from the Y and I have nothing to do,'' McKeon said. ``I have dinner early, sit in the chair, watch television. I go nuts!''

 

Last week, he even found himself watching a Boston Red Sox news conference on ESPN.

 

''There's nothing to do,'' he complained. ``It's like that every day for me.''

 

This isn't the first time McKeon has been forced into retirement, of course. The Kansas City Royals and Oakland A's both hired and fired him in 1970s, the San Diego Padres hired and fired him in the 1980s, and he worked for the Cincinnati Reds for seven years, beginning in 1993, before they, too, sent him packing.

 

''When San Diego let him go, I was thinking he would never get another job,'' Carol said. So that's when she had her dream house built -- a beautiful six-bedroom, two-story Tudor-style home in a wooded area of north-central North Carolina not far from the state's famed Tobacco Road.

 

Instead, the wait between jobs kept getting shorter and shorter. Three years between the Padres and Reds. Two and a half seasons between the Reds and Marlins. And now, less than 90 days into his latest retirement, McKeon is already impatient.

 

''I've noticed it more this time,'' Carol said.

 

That's saying something because, near the end of his last sabbatical, a family member caught McKeon watering the plastic flowers.

 

''Yeah, he gets a little bored,'' said eldest daughter Kristi, 45. ``It's just been our life all along. Kind of our whole live revolves around where he's at, what he's doing.''

 

Even so, if McKeon's family had its way, their father would have resigned after the World Series.

 

''The kids wanted him to go out a winner,'' Carol said.

 

Instead, McKeon returned in 2004 because he wanted to manage in the All-Star Game.

 

McKeon and his wife talked about retirement again near the end of that season, but, after a secret meeting with management, McKeon decided on his own to stay.

 

'Driving home from the ballpark, I said, `Well, I guess you're going to be back for another year,' '' McKeon said he told his wife. ``I didn't even ask her.''

 

? ? ?

 

Elon is a quiet college town that owes its founding to the North Carolina Railroad Co., which, years before the Civil War, hacked a narrow right-of-way through the forest and later built a depot there.

 

And though the town has grown some, it hasn't changed much in the five decades since McKeon first passed through as a minor-league manager.

 

With a population of less than 7,000 and more white-steepled churches than gas stations, Elon couldn't be more different than McKeon's childhood home in South Amboy, N.J., a gritty blue-collar town that was once claimed the world record for most bars crammed into one square mile.

 

''I adjust wherever I'm at,'' said McKeon, whose baseball career has taken him through more small towns than Greyhound. ``I'm comfortable anywhere, really.''

 

But after more than a decade in San Diego, he and Carol -- who hails from nearby Burlington, N.C. -- eventually decided to return to Elon, where they first bought a house in the 1950s. At the time Jack never guessed the peace and quiet would be so, well, peaceful and quiet.

 

''I can't go anywhere,'' complains McKeon, who has taken to pacing the aisles of discount stores to pass the time.

 

''Wal-Mart, Kmart. I'll do anything to get out,'' he said. ``There's nothing else to do in this town.''

 

If only he can make it to the spring. That's when grandson Avery will begin baseball practice again, with McKeon sitting in the stands offering encouragement.

 

All of McKeon's grandchildren are standout athletes -- Kellan is a 125-pound sophomore wrestler at Duke, Zach is a standout junior pitcher at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, high school junior Mallory is an all-county volleyball player and middle schooler Kenzie is a soccer phenom -- but Avery, a 13-year-old seventh-grader, might be the best of them all.

 

He's also the only kid on his team to get private tips from a two-time National League Manager of the Year. And he would like to keep it that way.

 

''I like having him here,'' Avery said. ``You can actually talk to him. You don't see him just sitting there [on TV]. When he was managing, you get to go to different stadiums. You get to meet players. You get to get autographs and stuff.

 

``But it's more important to have him around. I already have a bunch of stuff.''

 

? ? ?

 

Eventually, McKeon figures, someone with the Marlins will tell him what his new job entails. But he already knows what it doesn't entail: getting involved with the players on the field.

 

McKeon said he wasn't asked -- and didn't expect to be asked -- about any of the team's recent personnel moves. And he doesn't want to be asked about any future ones, either.

 

''As far as who to pick and who not to pick, that's not my cup of tea,'' he said. ``That's the new manager's job.''

 

Running the clubhouse is also the new manager's job, McKeon said. So the last thing Joe Girardi is likely to see this season is the old manager hanging around.

 

''It's his clubhouse now,'' McKeon said. ``I don't know, maybe it's an old-school thing. But I don't want to get in the way. I don't want to interfere.

 

``The focus should be on him.''

 

Although McKeon is gone, he's not forgotten. Rarely does a day pass, he says, without a phone call or letter of thanks from someone in South Florida.

 

Perhaps the most touching came from Admin Walansky, a baseball fan in Brooklyn who runs a website devoted to the Marlins. Inside the manila envelope where copies of dozens of e-mail tributes from fans all over the country:

 

''Jack, I hope you know how many smiles you brought to Marlins fans over the past few years. The 2003 championship was one of those truly great sports memories, and we'll always cherish it,''

 

-- Hotcorner

 

``Hard to say something that hasn't already been said. . . . You've been a saint for this team. Thanks, and God Bless.''

 

-- geemoney

 

``Jack, thanks for the memories. 2003 was one hell of a memory and I sincerely thank you for it. On behalf of myself and all Marlin fans, thanks for it all. I'll have a cigar in your honor tonight.''

 

-- Das Texan

 

''This is what makes you feel good,'' McKeon said.

 

And the admiration is mutual since McKeon, more than most managers, had warm relationships with the fans and media -- even ownership -- during his short time in South Florida. Perhaps that has made this last farewell more difficult than the others.

 

''I probably had more fun in Florida than any place I've been,'' he said. ``I was working for some great people. They never pressured you, never bothered you. It was great. You look back and in three years, 2 ? years, what did we accomplish? We won a World Series. So how can you be disappointed?

 

``It's not so much the game that you miss. You miss the writers and the television people and some of the great fans. And the camaraderie you had. That's what you miss more than anything.''

 

Did you guys know that you were being quoted and used in the newspaper?

 

McKeon really is a turn-around specialist. I wonder if he will really get another chance to mangage in the bigs? If he does Im sure the team he goes to will be underachieving and in need of a spark.

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Beetle Marlin

Beetle

Posted
Posted

...I don't know about the online version but the paper version has a lot of great pictures....

I'm having a really hard time finding the Herald anywhere in Palm Beach County today; all the stores that normally carry it are closed.

 

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could scan the pics and post them here.

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Dan Maroone Hammerhead

Dan Maroone

Posted
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...I don't know about the online version but the paper version has a lot of great pictures....

I'm having a really hard time finding the Herald anywhere in Palm Beach County today; all the stores that normally carry it are closed.

 

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could scan the pics and post them here.

 

 

Go to the Stop n' Go in PB Lakes Blvd. (Behind Ocwen). They always carry te Herald, plus right there in the corner of the strip mall (in from of Subway) there is on of those machines that sells the Herald. Also the machines outside The Pointe apartments in Village sell the Herald.

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Beetle Marlin

Beetle

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Go to the Stop n' Go in PB Lakes Blvd. (Behind Ocwen). They always carry te Herald, plus right there in the corner of the strip mall (in from of Subway) there is on of those machines that sells the Herald. Also the machines outside The Pointe apartments in Village sell the Herald.

 

I went by that Stop 'N' Go and they were closed. I also checked all the vending machines; no dice. Thanks anyway.

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PBMarlin All-Star

PBMarlin

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I wouldnt be suprised if he gets another chance even at his age because he still has something to offer

 

Wouldn't be shocking if there's a midseason firing somewhere. Definetly has that turn a team around reputation,

 

That would be great to see Jack have another turn-around. I believe he has one more left in him.

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