Calling Jack

Nervous dialing means one thing

Sometimes I swore I could feel my heart beating up into my neck. Such was the fate of an anxious adolescent attempting to call a potential date for the first time. On a landline with a keypad, there was time to think about each digit. It created build-up, added drama. I’d press the final number and sit in that pause before either a ringing tone or a busy signal revealed itself. My heart pounded.

I thought of that teenage rite of passage when I called Jack McKeon last week. Following up on an anecdote from the most recent WTP, I hoped to learn more about the advice he had given Kevin Towers years ago. For some reason, placing the call transported me to my younger days.

Some might say Trader Jack should be flattered — or very frightened.

The day after speaking with McKeon, I was listening to an episode of Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, the podcast of the comedian and former late-night host. O’Brien and Adam Sandler were discussing the stars who came before them. “If they were on TV or in the movies when I was a kid,” O’Brien offers, “I’m in complete awe of them.”

That’s how I feel about baseball, Conan. That’s how I felt one evening while having dinner in the Petco Park press dining area and hearing Vin Scully in conversation at a nearby table. That’s why my body reacted as if I was about to ask Trader Jack to prom.

I think it was his home phone that I called. He answered. I introduced myself and asked, “Am I interrupting anything?”

He was watching the Nationals play the Red Sox. Of course he was. McKeon is a senior advisor to Nationals GM Mike Rizzo, though he won’t actually admit to doing anything specific. “After 76 years [in the game], I can do what I want,” he says with a laugh.

When I mentioned the advice that KT would often reference — to release an underperforming player so as not to display your mistake every night — he chuckled. “I probably shared that with a lot of people,” he says. It’s a swift form of damage control, really. “Get rid of him, and nobody is going to say, ‘Who signed that guy?’” Somewhere between common sense and crisis management, McKeon made a lasting impression.

I have no idea what the inside of McKeon’s house looks like, in what room he watches games, or how large his TV might be. Nonetheless, there’s a comfort in picturing him following the broadcast. He led the 1984 Padres to the World Series as the GM, and he won the World Series as the Marlins skipper 19 years later. He’s the only person to have won more than 1,000 games both as a minor league manager and big league manager.

Over the span of many Winter Meetings, I encountered McKeon, a colorful thread in the fabric of the game. Farther removed from the action today, my conversation with him — no matter how brief — grounded me in my own fandom. I watched with friends as McKeon’s Marlins won the 2003 World Series. At the time, I was still unsure if I’d ever break through into a front office. Conan O’Brien’s perspective resonated.

Far from the comfort of Trader Jack’s living room, my kids have recently been subjected to a lot of baseball on the TV. Sorry, Bluey. While watching one game, my daughter asked about the exaggerated leg kick of a Rockies hitter. “Why do baseball players do that with their leg, but softball players don’t?” she wondered.

I was excited that she had observed a nuance of the game. It was a great way into a very, very, very brief explanation of weight transfer and timing without having to use any of those words. (Softball players do it, too.)

Over the past couple years, I’ve found that the more my kids play ball, the more astutely they watch the game. And the more they watch the game, the more interested they become in playing it.

There was plenty for McKeon to watch on the day we spoke. The Nationals lineup included the second overall pick from last year’s draft, Dylan Crews, as well as C.J. Abrams and James Wood, both acquired from San Diego in the Juan Soto trade. The future in Washington might come sooner than we think. (I don’t like to make many predictions, but in a very crowded NL Rookie of the Year field led by Dodgers import Yoshinobu Yamamoto, I think Wood — as long as the Nats add him to their big league roster — has a real chance to win the award as a long-shot candidate. Do with that as you wish.)

Also in the lineup that day was Joey Gallo, who has infamously struck out in almost 38% of his career plate appearances. He’s walked in almost 15% of his times to the plate and homered in 6.3% of the time. Three out of every five times he bats, the defense can take the play off. With a .197 career batting average, Gallo is the kind of player who McKeon may have once released. Depending on April’s results, Trader Jack may be sharing his advice again.

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