Phillies' Pete Mackanin has a way with players

ABOUT EIGHT YEARS ago, just before the underachieving Cincinnati Reds took the field for what was likely one of their many forgettable games in a lost season, Pete Mackanin approached veterans Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn before the national anthem.

Mackanin, 55 at the time and in his second stint as an interim manager in three seasons, addressed the 37-year-old Griffey and put on a serious face.

"I know how you like wearing your hat backwards, but that's not happening anymore while I'm here and I'm going to fine you each time you're wearing it like that," Mackanin said.

Griffey listened. Dunn probably made a face like he'd just seen a ghost.

"I'm going to hit you in the wallet if you don't cut it out," Mackanin continued.

Raised in the South Side of Chicago and strengthened by what's now 47 years in baseball as a player, manager, coach and scout, Mackanin, like a Second City comic, doesn't break.

His sarcasm has a different brand of bite than most. Not only can he mess with players, fellow coaches and media alike, but he can sell it well, too.

Griffey, Dunn and their new, interim manager surely let out a few belly laughs after the moment that bonded the veterans to their new boss. It's really Mackanin's way - he takes his job seriously, but not so much that it drives everyone around him nuts, including himself.

Mackanin's magic has worked in Philadelphia. After last night's loss to the Mets at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies are 24-27 since Mackanin took over for Ryne Sandberg two months ago.

The Phillies entered the game with a 21-12 record since the All-Star break, fourth-best in baseball and behind three teams with serious World Series aspirations: the Cubs, Cardinals and Blue Jays. The Phillies, you may remember, were on pace to lose 109 games two months ago and held baseball's worst record for the majority of the summer.

But they've shown marked improvement in the last month. How much of that is Mackanin's doing?

"I think it's played a huge role," closer Ken Giles said. "To me, he's the rock of the team. If something goes bad, he's there to help pick us up. If we're playing too tight, he figures out a way to loosen us up. He's the main reason we're on a great streak right now. He knows how to keep us loose and he's just letting us enjoy ourselves. Basically, he just wants us to go out there and succeed. He's letting us do what we want to do and he's helping us on the way. It's huge."

With the season concluding in less than six weeks, does Mackanin deserve a chance to stick around for 2016? His record would appear to speak for itself. And Giles is far from the only Phillies player who would speak on their interim manager's behalf.

"I think so," Ryan Howard said, regarding whether Mackanin deserved a shot to kick the interim tag for 2016.

It's fair to point out Howard spoke in favor of Mackanin at the end of a week when the manager benched him for five of six games after telling the veteran first baseman he wanted to give younger players an opportunity against lefthanded pitchers. Howard obviously wants to play, but he also respects the man who is currently writing out the lineup card, too.

"[The front office] is going to make their decisions this offseason, but the way the team has been able to respond with Pete at the helm, it's definitely been a positive," Howard said. "It's been fun to watch, fun to watch the young guys go out and do their thing, and having Pete there has definitely been good, for sure."

As Howard mentioned, the topic of Mackanin's candidacy beyond the 2015 season is almost an issue not worth wasting too much breath on because of the transitioning power structure within the front office.

For example, you can currently ask Mackanin's direct superior for an appraisal of him, but since Ruben Amaro Jr. himself isn't under contract beyond 2015, there might be another general manager making the decision on the long-term manager two months from now. So while it's certainly encouraging for Mackanin - and fans of Mackanin, who include a growing portion of an impressed fan base - to hear Amaro say repeatedly that he's done a "nice job" and that he likes how the young roster is playing hard and with an upbeat energy, it might not mean a whole lot.

With that said, soon-to-be team president Andy MacPhail isn't blind. Although he isn't making his own decisions until he's officially on the job in October, MacPhail recently traveled with the team through San Diego, Arizona and Milwaukee. So he's been able to evaluate the current coaching stuff up close and in person.

As president of baseball operations, MacPhail will have final say on all baseball matters, just as Pat Gillick does now with Amaro as his general manager.

Mackanin would surely like to be considered. But he's also been down this path before.

The aforementioned Cincinnati Reds, whom he managed in an interim role two years after doing the same in Pittsburgh for the season's final month, went 41-39 under his reign. From the time Mackanin took charge until the end of the 2007 season, the Reds had the second-best record in the National League Central.

But Mackanin wasn't hired as the full-time manager that offseason, just as he hadn't been in Pittsburgh two years earlier, and just as he was interviewed but never offered the manager's job in Houston, Boston, or with the Chicago Cubs over the last 20 years or so.

"I really have no expectations, I just put it in their hands and I do what I do," Mackanin said. "I mean that sincerely. I'm not managing to get the job. I'm just managing the players I have, just like any other job. Whatever happens, happens."

Mackanin can look at the standings just like anyone else. He can see the younger players improving and feel good about the work the coaching staff has done in the last few months of what began as a trying season.

But as for what happens after this season, there's no sense in stressing about it for the 64-year-old Mackanin. He likened it to one of the many in-game decisions he's been in charge of making since taking over on June 26.

"It's not up to me," Mackanin said. "If I bring in a lefty to face a lefty and he doesn't get them out, what else can I do?"

Blog: ph.ly/HighCheese