Florida marlins manager jack mckeon biography

McKeon left Holy Cross after one semester and signed a contract with the Pirates organization.

Jack mckeon reds

The writing was on the wall. By , he dropped the pretense of ever becoming a major league player and became a full-time manager. This decision led to another tour of those great American minor league cities and towns — Appleton, Wilson, Vancouver, Dallas and Atlanta. His first assignment was managing their winter instructional league. Next came the manager job at their High Point-Thomasville affiliate.

He moved to AAA Omaha for the season and over the next four summers compiled a record of and was chosen the American Association manager of the year twice. Royals owner Ewing Kauffman was impressed by the hard-charging McKeon. After the young Royals finished the season with a record, Kauffman, afraid of losing McKeon to another team, hastily fired the popular Bob Lemon and gave the job to the brash year old McKeon.

Lemon was only 51 at the time of his dismissal. Kauffman got off cheap, only having to pay Lemon an additional year of salary to get out from under the lawsuit. Busby, who had won 22 games in and threw no-hitters in his first two seasons, had a meeting with McKeon and General Manager Joe Burke to address grievances.