By BRIAN COSTELLO
June 22, 2008
Jack McKeon was sitting outside a hotel in Memphis last week, preparing to give a speech to a few hundred people in a ballroom, passing on his tips on management, leadership and motivation.
Five years ago, McKeon pulled off a trick few managers have - taking over a team in midseason and guiding it to the playoffs. The 2003 Marlins won the World Series after McKeon replaced Jeff Torborg 38 games into the season, and in the process gave McKeon a lucrative post-baseball career where people pay just to hear his advice.
"They call me the takeover expert," McKeon said with a chuckle.
Jerry Manuel might want to enroll in one of McKeon's sessions because the Mets interim manager is embarking on a difficult task. Midseason managerial switches rarely improve teams. Since 1978, teams have changed managers 125 times during the season. Eleven of those teams made the playoffs; five made the World Series; two won the World Series; 38 finished in last place.
McKeon and Bob Lemon, who took the '78 Yankees to the championship, are the exceptions, not the rule.
Usually when a managerial change is made, the team just isn't any good and the front office wants to either just get rid of the current manager or to get a head start on the next season. In 1979, the Phillies brought Dallas Green in and the following year they won the World Series. The same thing happened in 1986 when the Twins hired Tom Kelly.
This year's Mets fall into a different category - the underachievers. When a team doesn't live up to expectations, the players remain but the manager doesn't.
The 2004 Astros were like that. They had finished in second place the year before and added Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte to their pitching staff. When they sat at 44-44 in July, the Astros fired Jimy Williams and brought in Phil Garner. The team went on to win the wild card and then made the World Series a year later.
