Reds’ mistake becomes Marlins’ prize catch

By Nathan Walls
Editor

One of the worst feelings for a baseball club has to be when a former employee moves to another team and does better there than they did for your organization.

I’m sure the Cincinnati Reds are feeling that pain after 72-year-old Jack McKeon led the Florida Marlins to the World Series title this year.

McKeon, a native of Alamance County, N.C., coached the Reds for a 63-game portion of 1997 and the entirety of the 1998, 1999 and 2000 campaigns.

He was fired in 2000, when the team went 85-77 after the acquisition of Ken Griffey, Jr.

Many Reds fans were expecting the team to make it to the World Series after a great turn around year in 1999, which saw the Reds go 96-67 and lose to the New York Mets in a one-game wild card playoff.

Considering the 96-win season and the unbelievable pressure the Reds faced during Griffey’s debut year for his hometown team, McKeon was the best Cincinnati manager in years. His 96 wins in 1999 were the most for a Reds manager since Sparky Anderson recorded 102 wins in 1976.

Anderson had much more to work with ,too, as his teams won back-to-back world championships in 1975 and 1976, which helped give the team the nickname of “The Big Red Machine.”

Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey, Cesar Geronimo and George Foster were far greater players than the likes of Greg Vaughn, Eddie Taubensee, Dmitri Young, Aaron Boone, Sean Casey, Mike Cameron, Barry Larkin and Pokey Reese.

So, when Jim Bowden canned McKeon in 2000 he was out of line. He should have realized how crafty McKeon is. It takes a very good manager to mold a team that has been unsuccessful for several years into a team that is a playoff contender. That’s what the Reds were under McKeon.

Now, the Marlins are living off Bowden’s mistake.

After a 16-22 start this season, Marlins management fired Jeff Torborg and named McKeon his replacement. With McKeon at the helm, the squad went 75-49 and finished 91-71, good for a wild-card playoff berth.

The Marlins ousted the defending National League Champion San Francisco Giants 3 games to 1 in the first round and came back from a 3-1 series deficit to get past the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series.

In the World Series, the Marlins were big underdogs to the heralded New York Yankees, but defeated them in six games. Florida ended the series in Yankee Stadium, one of the most raucous places for a visiting team to play. For the Yankees, winners of 26 world championships, it was the first time they lost a postseason series in the stadium since 1981.

The World Series victory was the second in the Marlins 11-year history and McKeon’s first.

He has agreed to return as manager next season and hopes to lead the team back to the World Series.

Meanwhile, the Reds have hired a new general manager, Dan O’Brien, who takes over for Bowden.Bowden was fired on July 28 when the Reds failed to live up to owner Carl Lindner’s expectations.

If Bowden would have kept McKeon onboard, he might still have his old job.
Instead, he doesn’t and McKeon is on cloud nine in Florida.
The Reds are once again undergoing something they have been doing since McKeon left: rebuilding.

What a shame.
But they deserve it.