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Jeff Miller / Miami Herald

 

The Jack McKeon Special isn't really anything special at all. Chopped steak smothered in onions.

 

Isn't that a Hungry Man TV dinner? The chef's selection at a Denny's? Something your grandfather would order?

 

Well, your grandfather did order it. He orders it every time, in fact. Before the manager of the Marlins made his initial request, Manero's didn't even have chopped steak on its menu. Now, the Hallandale Beach restaurant has chopped steak as a nightly special, grease-penciled on signs at both doors.

 

That's what McKeon has become, you know. He has become our grandfather, everyone's grandfather, the papa of South Florida. This can happen when your team produces its own nightly specials.

 

''He walks in here and loves everyone in the place,'' says Tom Schmitt, McKeon's official waiter. 'Everyone loves him right back. The first night I met him, within a half hour, I went to the bar and told the people there, `No wonder those kids play so hard for this man.' He's absolutely charming.''

 

This is a part of one of these crazy runaway success stories we don't tell enough. How a stranger such as McKeon can arrive one day, a ghost from nowhere, and press more than the right buttons of a baseball team. He also can touch an entire neighborhood, community and corner of a state.

 

When McKeon first walked into Manero's, he could have been just another condo-dwelling, early-bird-dining senior citizen who moved here to die. Very soon, however, he was recognized as someone special, a man more alive than many, a man who could help a bunch of players not half his age rejoin the living.

 

So now when McKeon walks into Manero's, people stand and applaud. They ask him to sign their napkins and pose for their cameras. They thank him and call him Mr. McKeon, though he insists on Jack.

 

He'll walk around the place, shaking hands with everyone, going all the way into the kitchen because when you've come this far at age 72, a swinging door isn't going to stop you from spreading the joy.

 

''I don't even like sports, never followed sports,'' waitress Mary Worrall says. ``Now, the first thing I do every morning is read all the Marlins stuff. That's because of Jack. That's the power he has.''

 

Almost lost among the many stunning aspects of these Marlins is that all this is happening to McKeon for the first time, after more than 50 years in baseball, after managing in places like Missoula and Fox Cities, after being considered done.

 

He never had been in the dugout for a single postseason moment like the ones the Marlins have been producing routinely. He never had jumped around in the on-field celebrations. He never had watched a World Series game from the inside.

 

So all this touchy, cozy warmth goes both ways. Like everyone else in this restaurant where the 1972-73 Dolphins once had their own room, McKeon feels something more human than history when he enters and those inside rise.

 

''When you reach this time of your career, you never can expect anything,'' he says. ``All of this is special. It's something to cherish. We've done a few things, and at this point, we have only one other place to go.''

 

McKeon loves Manero's so much that he has mentioned the restaurant on TV. Someone gave him matches from the place to take for luck on the Marlins' final regular-season trip. His picture hangs on the wall, right there with Secretariat, Don Shula and Ronald Reagan.

 

He was here the night the Marlins took a two-games-to-one lead over the Giants in the first round. Arik Fetscher, Manero's general manager, sent McKeon and his family a bottle of champagne, then, fearing he might have upset some cosmic balance by offering champagne before the Giants had been eliminated, Fetscher couldn't sleep that night.

 

''You don't want to be the starter of any new curses,'' he says.

 

``Not with some of the teams we've been playing.''

 

Monday, while talking about McKeon, Fetscher excuses himself to answer the phone. The conversation that follows goes like this:

 

Caller: ``Is the manager in?''

 

Fetscher: ``I'm the general manager.''

 

Caller: ``No, I meant the manager of the Marlins.''

 

McKeon's impact on this team could be debated, like the impact the manager or head coach has on any team. But his impact on this place is as obvious as the parking spot out front, the one marked with the handwritten sign reading, ``Reserved for Jack.''

 

''I don't know anyone who doesn't like that man,'' Worrall says. ``He's touched a lot of us in here. I hope he understands that.''

 

The Jack McKeon Special? Good, perhaps, but not nearly as special as Jack McKeon.

mmmmm chopped steak smotherd w/onions.

 

sounds like a winner

If you live in Broward, Maneros has the best crab cakes south of Maryland for appetizers. It is a fine establishment that treats its patrons very well.

 

Ask for Tom and tell him Jack sent you. It will be worth it!

Can we have Jack on the southside of Chicago nest year? Pretty please?

 

By the way, have any of you Florida Folk ever been to Leverock's? It's my favorite FLA restaurant. Please don't tell me it's a tourist trap.

By the way, have any of you Florida Folk ever been to Leverock's? It's my favorite FLA restaurant. Please don't tell me it's a tourist trap.

There are a whole bunch of Leverock's restaurants up and down each coast of FL. Agreed that they are good and lots of locals do frequent them, but they are located in tourist trap locations and are not up to "favorite" level by any stretch.

At least they don't serve Marlin on the menu...