Sunday, September 24, 2000
Reds show no interest in retaining McKeon
By Chris Haft
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Today's mystery guest has all the qualifications to be a successful major-league manager, mainly because he already is one.
Through Saturday, he had guided his team to the seventh-best winning percentage in the majors since the beginning of the 1999 season, though injuries limited his club's projected starting lineup to 14 games together this year. His trophy case includes a Manager of the Year award. His immediate supervisor acknowledged that he has performed well.
He's Jack McKeon of the Cincinnati Reds. For all his accomplishments, his chances of returning next year appear slim.
There's no telling when the roulette wheel of candidates to succeed McKeon will stop whirling, nor which name will come up as the winner. It's unlikely, though, that a successor will be named before the end of the World Series. Baseball's hierarchy discourages teams from making major announcements during the postseason. Also, the Reds may need time to inspect potential successors who could be shaken loose from other teams' organizational trees.
The apparent field includes in-house prospects such as special assistant Bob Boone and coaches Ron Oester and Ken Griffey Sr. It also features managers of other clubs who could lose their jobs or choose to leave, such as Seattle's Lou Piniella, Los Angeles' Davey Johnson and the New York Mets' Bobby Valentine.
To purely objective observers or those who follow the Reds at a distance, the notion that McKeon's job is in jeopardy might seem ab surd. In fact, no club official will say a change is imminent. Yet none, privately or publicly, has backed McKeon's return for 2001.
McKeon said he hasn't spoken with any Reds officials about next year. Asked if he wanted to return for another season, he said: “I always like to manage. I'll let you know after the season's over.”
McKeon declined to address the subject further. It's believed that if McKeon somehow is to retain his job, he'd have to capture the fancy of chief executive officer Carl Lindner, whose last-minute intervention resulted in shortstop Barry Larkin's three-year contract extension.
Management approached McKeon with the barest hint of enthusiasm after last season, when the Reds finished 96-67 and missed the playoffs by one game. He received a paltry $40,000 raise and a one-year extension, though it was obvious to everybody in the baseball world that
he would be named the National League's Manager of the Year three weeks later.
“I think he has done a very good job,” said Reds general manager Jim Bowden, pointing out that the team will finish second in the NL Central despite having the 23rd-highest payroll among the majors' 30 teams. “The season has been filled with injuries. Every ball that could bounce wrong did. Several players didn't perform to expectations. And we had one bad month (a 10-17 June).
“Overall, I thought the team performed very well. We were beaten by the St.Louis Cardinals, who spent $21 million for (free agent) pitching and, in reality, had a better team. ... To finish second is a tribute to the good job that the manager, the coaches and the players did in a year when everything went wrong.”
But Bowden declined to comment on McKeon's status beyond this year or how the timing of a decision on this issue might proceed.
The organization's continued coolness toward McKeon suggests that he's doomed. The players' concealed disdain toward him hasn't helped. None has the common sense or the guts, depending on your point of view, to criticize McKeon openly.
Attitudes in the clubhouse almost surely would change if the Reds replaced McKeon with Oester or Griffey, both of whom happen to be signed through next year.
Oester, the third base coach and formerly the team's starting second baseman, probably would be a no-nonsense disciplinarian who would demand hustle.
Griffey's 19 seasons in the majors left him with the skill to relate to players easily. The Reds gravitate toward their bench coach almost naturally for advice. Though insiders no longer consider Griffey a leading candidate for the Reds job if a vacancy arises, he'll probably be asked to interview for other offseason managerial openings. Baltimore, Colorado and Milwaukee interviewed Griffey for their respective jobs last winter.
Both coaches said they'd like to manage someday.
“Probably the last couple of years I've decided I'd like to try it,” Oester said. “I've had people come up and tell me they think I'd be good at it, and that makes me feel good, too.”
Said Griffey, citing his winter league managerial experiences: “I didn't go to Puerto Rico not to manage. I didn't go to the Arizona Fall League not to manage.”
But neither wants to gain the job at McKeon's expense.
“I have a job to do right now: coaching third base for Jack,” Oester said. “That's the way I look at it. It (managerial talk) puts me in an awkward situation, because I like what I'm doing. ... Jack's easy to coach for, because he gives you responsibilities and lets you do your job.”
“I don't want to be hired for all the wrong reasons,” said Griffey, who happens to be the star center fielder's father. “The last two years I felt that Jack has done a pretty good job.”
Among the other candidates:
• Boone, who has managerial experience (Kansas City, 1995-97) but some believe, too high of a price tag to get hired.
• Piniella, who managed the Reds to their last World Series title in 1990. Whether the Mariners reach the postseason, and how they fare when they get there, could determine whether he stays with that franchise. Tampa Bay looms as another potential destination for Piniella if Larry Rothschild is fired.
• Johnson, who worked smoothly with Bowden from 1993-95. Johnson's Reds were leading the NL Central when the strike ended the 1994 season and won the division in 1995, reaching the league championship series. Johnson's tenure ended only because former owner Marge Schott disapproved of his living with his fiancee before they were married. The Dodgers appear destined to fire Johnson after this season.
• Valentine, the longest of long shots. Though the Mets should clinch the wild-card berth soon, he has received no contractual assurances for next year, creating the possibility that he might resign or get fired.
Meanwhile, speculation will continue for at least another month, unless the Oct.2 meeting Bowden will conduct with McKeon and his coaches yields startling news.
“I wish somehow we would know one way or another and (McKeon) would know one way or another,” Oester said. “It's kind of uneasy being around him, without him knowing and us knowing. But we have a job to do the rest of the year.”
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Reds show no interest in retaining McKeon
