Does Macha Deserve to Stay?

A column by Michael Hunt will run in tomorrow's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel regarding the future of Brewers' manager Ken Macha. It got me thinking and when I start thinking, I have to share my thoughts. So my blog is back...like it or not.

Let's set the table...Ken Macha signed a two-year-deal before this season and the results in his first season have been less than desirable. The Brewers are 69-75 and 15 games out of first place and sport the worst pitching staff in baseball.

Hunt says Brewers GM Doug Melvin won't allow Macha to manage as a "lame duck" next season. To me that is the interesting part. Why not?

This disastrous season certainly isn't fully his fault, so that is why I bring him back as manager for next season. If you are Doug Melvin, you are going to have a very hard time justifying extending his contract, even if it is just adding on an additional year. Macha certainly hasn't deserved to have his contract extended.

I also believe he doesn't deserve to be fired yet either. This team has issues, plain and simple. Most of them not Macha's fault. Do I think he's done a good job? No, I don't. But he deserves another year.

My problems with Ken mainly fall with his constant shuffling of the lineup that started when Rickie Weeks went down. His lineup changes daily and has platooned a guy like Casey McGehee when he has performed with Rookie of the Year numbers in a limited role.

Macha shows no fire, ever. He rarely argues a call and shows almost no emotion. I'm ok with the lack of arguing, but his lack of emotion has really shown in this team. The team is dead and has been for ahwile. Hunt reveals that there is a disconnect between some of the players and that Macha wishes the players would have used his open-door policy more. Here's a suggesting Kenny, maybe you should have been more aggressive in dealing with the disconnects. Macha looks like an old, tired and run down manager. Certainly not one that is deserving to have his contract extended.

If I'm Melvin, I let Macha come back for his last year with an improved team. If the results are similar, he is done. If there is progress and succes, then you can extend his deal. Just no extensions now please.

McGehee's Night To Remember

With the Milwaukee Brewers struggling to get anyone out these days and quickly falling out of the race, it has been easy for Brewer fans to turn their backs on a team that just one year ago was taking them on the magical ride to the playoffs.

Fans have been booing loudly, a group of good guys that just have too many holes to be more than a .500 baseball team. But for one night all of that seemed to be put behind them, one magical night in late July that one magical Brewer will not forget.

Casey McGehee has been a career minor leaguer. Drafted in the 10th round out of Fresno State in 2003 by the Chicago Cubs, McGehee spent the first six years of his professional career in the minors, the last three in AAA. It was beginning to look like Casey was one of those dreaded AAAA players, too good for AAA but can't cut it in the bigs. His path to the majors was blocked by Aramis Ramirez. McGehee appeared in just six games with the Cubs in 2008, going 4-24.

After the season the Cubs placed McGehee on waivers, despite his 92 RBI season in AAA. The Brewers and Doug Melvin, always known for finding a diamond in the rough, put in a claim for McGehee and it was the best thing that happened to both parties.

Casey McGehee went into spring training as a long shot at best to make the Brewers, but that didn't stop him. He did everything he could to force his way onto the club and now has setteled in nicely at third base for the Crew and is certainly one of the favorites for NL Rookie of the Year.

That alone is a good story, but that isn't the best story. Meet Mack McGehee, Casey's two and a half year old son. Mack has the brain disease known as cerebal palsy. CP prevents development and there is no cure, it is something Mack will live with the rest of his life.

With Mack as their inspiration, the Brewer's Wives raised money by auctioning off uniforms and called upon Mack to throw out the first pitch on the night they presented the gift of $50,000 .

So Mack went to the mound, gold walker and all, with the help of his favorite Brewer...no not his dad, but Prince Fielder. His dad did serve as the catcher.

"Mack loves Prince," McGehee told OnMilwaukee.com's Drew Olson, "For some reason, kids love that guy. I don't know what they see in him. He really likes Prince. There are a lot of guys he really likes. I thought it would be cool to have somebody he would be comfortable with."

Mack has found a center in New Berlin that has helped with his treatment tremendously.

"It's funny how stuff works,"McGehee said to Olson. "We feel like the care we've gotten and some of the breakthroughs we've made since we've been here in Milwaukee have been outstanding. We all think why things happen some times.... Maybe they happen for a reason."

Maybe the night of July 29th happened for a reason too. McGehee wasn't in Ken Macha's starting lineup when the Brewers took on the Nationals that night, but Macha called on McGehee to pinch hit with the Brewers down a run in the sixth and their offense scuffling. Casey lined a rocket home run into the Brewers bullpen that sent the place into a frenzy. Mack started the game, Casey won the game.

Watch Casey's game winning home run here.

Mack was still in attendance when the ball left the yard and left soon after the Brewers held on for a 7-5 victory. On his way home he called his dad to tell him "Good hit daddy."

"That was about as good a 'congratulations' as I could get," Casey said. "You can't help but smile when you see him. He makes the bad days a little easier and the good days that much better. You just can't help smiling when you see how he reacts. As young as he is, he gets it a little bit."

"As a father, that's going to me a moment I remember for a long time, He's something special. For him to go through what he's going through and be able to just keep plugging; you really don't even notice he's got anything wrong with him most of the time."

"He's been a big inspiration to me and the way some of the guys have taken to him, stuff like that, it's really special. If you'd have asked me a few years ago if I'd first of all even been on a big-league field, let alone be able to share it with my son in any way, shape, form or fashion, I'd have thought I was pretty lucky to have that happen. That was pretty special."

It's nights like those that you realize that baseball is just a game, but a special game for bonding father and son.

Watch Mack's First Pitch

Robinson Changed the World

Tonight I was tempted by many request to rant about the Brewers and their pathetic start to the 2009 season, but that must be put on hold...at least for a day, because Wednesday is Jackie Robinson Day throughout Major League Baseball.

One of the better things that Bud Selig has done in his tenure was to recognize the impact that Jackie Robinson had not only on baseball, not only on professional sports but on a country.

"We ask for nothing special. We ask only to be permitted to live as you live, and as our nation's Constitution provides."

That is what Robinson told a New Orleans newspaper when he was asked as to how he would like to be remembered. While he may not have lived long enough to see his dream come to complete fruition, Jackie Robinson is remembered for much more than that quote.

Another Robinson quote reads "A life is not important, except for the impact it has on other lives."

If that quote holds true, Robinson's life was quite important and that is why #42 will be worn by every player tomorrow, he has impacted them all. Ken Griffey Jr. approached Selig on the idea of letting him wear #42 on Robinson day and this season Selig is having each and every player don #42.

Sure, if Robinson wouldn't have broke into the big leagues as its first African America, somebody else would have done it. But the fact of the matter is that he did it and did it at a time that was troubling for our nation. The game of baseball has a powerful impact on this country and when Robinson broke into the game in 1947, the US was recovering from World War II. Robinson fought off the hate crimes, the people talking behind his back, the death threats...he just wanted to play the game he loved and wanted all others to get the chance to do what they love, no matter what color their skin was. This country was still seven years away from the desegregation of schools when Jackie Robinson took the field for Brooklyn 62 years ago.

Robinson didn't just impact baseball. He paved the way for Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper and Nat Clifton to become the first African American's in the NBA. His impact stretches far past sports, his name is synonymous with social change in America.

Hank Aaron hit it right on the head when he said that Jackie Robinson was bigger than the hate. He was bigger than his teammates that tried to petition him off the team, bigger than the pitchers that threw at him, bigger than the runners that dug their spikes into his legs.

Robinson let players like Hammerin' Hank dream of playing professional baseball. He let young African American's have dreams for the first time ever. Now the spirit of Robinson lets everyone dream...regardless the feat, you can achieve what you believe in, because somehow Jackie did.

Tomorrow we celebrate the day that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier of a nation and changed its history forever. While #42 went hitless in his debut 62 years ago, he did score the winning run for the Dodgers and for a nation.

Baseball's Back...All is Right

After an incredibly tough weekend for me personally it was nice to turn on my TV at 5PM here in the Valley of the Sun and see a familiar site...baseball. Not played on a diamond in Arizona or Florida, but in Philadelphia, starting the 2009 season.

One of the many reason's baseball is better that football is because spring is here and summer is on its way, football means snow and cold. Baseball is my life and I mean that. It is amazing how such a simple game can have such a meaning in somebody's life, but it does to me. There is no other place that I am happier than at a baseball field, I could sit there for days without a care in the world.

Opening Day to a baseball fan is the greatest day on the calender. It means hope, your team is still in first place. For my Brewers, since being born on their opening day in 1989, it normally took two more days to be eliminated, but not last year as CC Sabathia and Ryan Braun re-lit the fire under Brew Crew Nation and took them to the playoffs. But now CC is in pinstripes and a kid named Yo has the pressure to fill his shoes. Now its Pittsburgh that will be eliminated two days in...

I don't think there is a time in a long time, in which our country needs its pasttime more than it does right now. With the struggling economy, job loss and the other issues facing our nation, the people need something to get behind. The boys of summer will bring just that.

It hurt me to hear that upper deck seats at new Yankee Stadium are going for over $300. You took money from the people to build the $1.5 billion dollar stadium...now let them enjoy it. Who is going to pay $300 to watch from the nosebleeds when they barely can make ends meet at home right now. Shame on you Yankees...

Thank god other places aren't like that. Baseball should be affordable for the blue collar worker in the great cities across this nation to take their family to and enjoy summer in the USA. It all got under way on Sunday night in Philly where a young kid named Jordan Schaefer and a grizzled old veteran Derek Lowe showed Atlanta fans why they should have hope.

So from Wrigleyville to the Bay, from Brew City to LA, New York to Cincinnati and elsewhere across the USA, this is the day we've waited for since October...it is finally here and let's play ball.