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

Shame on You Kentucky

Billy Gillispie is fired already? Wasn't it just yesterday that he was the savior of Kentucky Basketball? Fans held signs outside of Rupp Arena saying just that fact, but just two years later the marriage from hell is over. To me there isn't one party to blame for this disaster of epic proportion. Billy Gillispie didn't fit in Lexington. Who's fault is that? Well that has to fall on the Kentucky Wildcats.

When AD Mitch Barnett started his search for the replacement to Tubby Smith, it didn't start off so hot. Barnett and Kentucky were turned down by the likes of Rick Barnes, Billy Donovon and
Jay Wright...who now all look like geniuses for staying at their schools, especially Wright who has Villanova in the Elite Eight. Kentucky didn't know where to turn when their legendary program was turned down by three different coaches...they needed a shoo-in. Enter Billy Gillispie. Maybe a little background check would have caught those DUI's?

Gillispie isn't the man that "fits" the Wildcat program. They need a guy like a Rick Pitnio, who is open and knowing that as the head man at Kentucky, your life is public and what people want to know. Gillispie went through a divorce right around the time he took the UK job and heard lots of questions about his personal life...which wasn't much of one. He didn't like that, he liked to keep to himself.

The marriage started out rocky, got better and then hit rock bottom. It was Billy's way or the highway, he would never adjust to his players. It all started with a loss to Gardner Webb in just his second game in Lexington, but Gillispie's Cats rebounded to go 12-4 in the SEC and earn Billy the SEC Coach of the Year. The Wildcats extended their NCAA Tournament streak, but were one in done, falling to Marquette in the first round. You don't go one and done at UK.

Or you don't miss the tournament? That is what the Wildcats did this season despite having an All-American in Jodie Meeks, despite starting 5-0 in the VERY weak SEC. They finished 3-8 after that hot start. Suddenly the top recruits that he pulled in no longer wanted to play for a guy that Patrick Patterson called a "jerk". Alex Legion bolted to Illinois the previous season already. Anybody know where that 8th grader he recruited is at?

The three most foreign letters in Lexington are N I T. It should tell you something about this program, that they still made the NIT with the second most losses in school history. Maybe winning the NIT would have saved Gillispie, but that ended with a ten point lost to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals after knocking off UNLV and Creighton to get there.

Can anyone name the last time Kentucky was in the NIT? That would be the 1949-50 season when the NIT was more prestigious than the NCAA Tournament. The last time Kentucky missed the big dance was Pitino's first two years when they were banned from being invited or his second team would have made it.

Some people just aren't suited to coach at the legendary programs like Kentucky and Billy Gillispie certanily is one of those coaches. Don't get me wrong...the coaching jobs he did at UTEP and Texas A&M was phenominal...but he only one 3 tournament games, not Kentucky material. Gillispie will get another job somewhere soon, somewhere where you don't have the incredible expectations like in Lexington.

But for now...the pressure is on Mitch Barnhart to correct his mistake or he will be looking for a job soon. Can anyone say Rick Pitino? John Calipari? It's going to be a fun off-season with legendary programs like Arizona and Kentucky looking for coaches....we'll see if anyone wants those jobs after seeing the Gillispie story.