MacKanin Blows off Littlefield

Pete Mackanin was a Dave Littlefield plant as bench coach. Everybody knew it -- nobody talked about it. He worked with Littlefield in the Expos organization in 1995 and 1996 and then was out of work for four years until he was hired to coach the Pirates 2001 Hickory club.

After 13 season of coaching and managing in the minors (note the unlucky baseball God number '13'), Pete was given the bench coach role by Littlefield who, incidentally, was hired by Kevin McClatchy as GM on a Friday the 13th.

At that time, Pete had accumulated a .521 winning percentage in the minors, was named co-manager of the year in 1993, his teams qualified for the playoffs in 7 of his 13 years, and he won two of them, including the 2002 Pirates Lynchburg team.

Pete knew how to win in the minors. 

When McClendon was fired by Littlefield in 2005, MacKanin said this:

“I'm sure by the time the season is over we'll all have an idea of what we're doing. It's a tough situation for everybody. You just kind of sit back and wonder what's going to become of you.”

The season was soon over and Littlefield didn't even as much as consider him for the open Pirates manager position. Instead, Pete was tossed back five steps to manage the Pirates Bradenton GCL rookie team where Pete resides.

Some folks would consider the Bradenton job a resort position, after all, it is in Florida. But during the summer when it is 105 degrees on the field with a humidity level around 90 percent almost every day, it is a very tough place to manage.

Pete MacKanin obviously thought so too.

Here it is in the middle of February, spring training is open for business, and we are just a few days away from everyone reporting, and MacKanin flips Littlefield the bird taking yet another step backwards in his career to get out of the Pirates organization... away from Littlefield and his band of losers. Pete took a scouting job with the Reds.

Good for Pete.

He deserves more than a Littlefield toss off.