Wednesday, September 29, 1999
Why doesn't McKeon have a contract?
BY PUAL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HOUSTON — He is smart enough to know he doesn't know it all. What Jack McKeon does best is nothing. Truly. His coaches coach. His players play. He fills out the lineup card and gets out of the way.
This is a compliment. While other managers might react to the acid test of a pennant race by taking more control or tightening up as much as their players, McKeon is who he is, every day.
He trusts his players and his staff. “I don't think that's hard” to do, McKeon said here Tuesday. “You trust 'em all year, why wouldn't you trust 'em now?”
Two months short of his 69th birthday, McKeon is secure enough he doesn't need the genius tag. It wouldn't look right on him, anyway. Too many managers think strategy wins games. A few think they invented strategy.
Here's the truth: Given time, a monkey could execute a double switch. A sportswriter could play the lefty-righty percentages. Even the “smart” managers get dumb when their players can't play. Take a bow, Tony LaRussa.
McKeon hasn't done much with the '99 Reds. That's a compliment. “Don't try to be Thomas Edison and re-invent the game. Let the players play,” McKeon said. “I think it's all them. I let them be themselves. I don't try to interfere and overmanage. I believe in them.”
McKeon has a great staff. Don Gullett and Tom Hume have done a marvelous job with the pitchers. Hume's work with the bullpen has been the unsung story of the year.
Dave Collins and Ron Oester deal well with players. If there's justice, Ken Griffey will be managing his own club soon.
McKeon has set the tone, though. Give him credit for that. He was smart enough to leave the clubhouse to Barry Larkin, Greg Vaughn and Pete Harnisch, secure enough to give his coaches some room. That the Reds came into the vital two-game set here with the Astros relaxed and confident is a tribute to the manager, who after half a century in baseball has nothing left to prove.
So how come he doesn't have a contract for next season?
Why, after a year that could have ended a week ago and still exceeded all expectations, is McKeon still wondering if he'll be back next year to try it again?
“Maybe they think I have to prove myself,” he said before Tuesday's game. “I don't have to prove myself. And it's not just this year. It's the last three years. We had to get this thing stabilized, and we did.”
The club has said it will wait until after Oct. 1 to talk about a deal. Now that the Reds are inching toward the playoffs, it will be longer than that. That McKeon hasn't been taken care of yet is telling.
Not everyone is enamored with McKeon. Club sources say players think McKeon talks about them behind their backs, that he doesn't communicate well. Others say he is too negative, even in victory, and is considered too “old school” by some.
Another complaint — a favorite for talk-show fodder — is the perception that McKeon is asleep at the switch during games. One everyday player told me last week that McKeon has not put players in the best position to succeed.
One person inside the organization went so far as to say the club has succeeded this season in spite of McKeon.
Believe what you want. The fact remains McKeon is the manager of a team that has made Cinderella look like a maid. The players universally like and respect each other. They play hard every day. Given the egos that inhabit any pro locker room, this is remarkable.
Probably, this owes more to Larkin and Vaughn than to McKeon. But the magic has occurred on McKeon's watch. He shouldn't be ignored.
It could be the team believes that at age 69, McKeon isn't going anywhere but home if he isn't rehired here. Armed with that belief, management is taking its sweet time. Regardless, letting go a Manager of the Year candidate would raise eyebrows.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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