The Main Event

  • September 5, 1978 – The Phillies claimed Pete Mackanin off waivers from Montreal.

Pete Mackanin was born in Chicago in 1951 and starred at Brother Rice High School before the Washington Senators drafted him in 1969. His professional career began with a broken thumb and a lonely dinner in Wytheville, Virginia, and it would stretch, in one form or another, across parts of five decades. Mackanin reached the major leagues with the Texas Rangers in 1973, four years after signing his first contract, as a light-hitting infielder who could play virtually anywhere on the diamond.

Mackanin’s most productive playing years came with the Montreal Expos, where he was the starting second baseman in 1975 and 1976. He was never a big offensive threat, finishing his nine-year major league career with a .226 batting average, but he had occasional pop. His 12 home runs as a second baseman in 1975 stood as an Expos record at the position for two decades, until Mike Lansing broke it in 1997. Mackanin played every infield position over stops with the Rangers, Expos, Phillies, and Minnesota Twins, retiring after the 1981 season with 355 career hits and 30 home runs.

Mackanin’s foray with the Phillies didn’t begin with his managerial career; it started as a player. The team claimed him off waivers from Montreal on September 5, 1978, and he appeared in a modest 18 games for Philadelphia across the 1978 and 1979 seasons — so anonymous a stretch that, as Mackanin later recalled, the team’s owner once asked why he hadn’t been playing, unaware he was on the disabled list recovering from elbow surgery. It was an unremarkable footnote in a career that was about to take a very different turn.

Thirteen years of buses and back roads

By 1983, at 31 and stuck in Triple-A, Mackanin figured his playing career was over and had no clear plan for what came next. A phone call from Gordon Goldsberry, farm director for his hometown Cubs, changed that: would Mackanin play one more year at Iowa, then try managing? He said yes, and by 1985 he was running a Cubs Single-A affiliate. What followed was 13 years managing in the minor leagues — stops in Nashville, Ottawa, Iowa, North Carolina, and Illinois — plus winter ball assignments in Australia, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. He worked his way onto four major league coaching staffs without ever landing the top job, interviewing for openings, including with the Boston Red Sox, and coming up short again and again.

Mackanin finally got a taste of major league managing in September 2005, when the Pittsburgh Pirates named him interim manager after firing Lloyd McClendon. He went 12-14 down the stretch but didn’t get the permanent job, which went to Jim Tracy. Two years later, while working as an advance scout for the Cincinnati Reds, he was tapped again after Cincinnati fired Jerry Narron in July 2007. Mackanin guided the Reds to a 41-39 finish, a 12-game improvement and the only winning record posted by a Reds manager between Jack McKeon in 2000 and that stretch — yet the job again went to someone else, this time Dusty Baker.

Back to Philadelphia, and finally a permanent seat

Mackanin rejoined the Phillies organization as bench coach under Charlie Manuel from 2009 through 2012, spent 2013 scouting for the New York Yankees, then returned as Philadelphia’s third base coach in 2014 and 2015. When manager Ryne Sandberg abruptly resigned in June 2015 with the rebuilding Phillies mired in a 26-48 start, Mackanin took over on an interim basis. He went 37-51 in his 88 games that season, but he impressed the incoming front office, led by new general manager Matt Klentak, enough that the interim tag was removed and Mackanin entered 2016 as a full-time major league manager for the first time — at age 64, in his 44th year in professional baseball.

Mackanin’s Phillies teams during this period were not built to win. The 2016 club went 71-91, and the 2017 team finished 66-96, both last-place finishes in the National League East as the organization leaned into a youth movement featuring players like Odubel Herrera, Maikel Franco, Cesar Hernandez, Aaron Nola, Vince Velasquez, and, late in 2017, rookie sensation Rhys Hoskins. Mackanin’s overall record as Phillies manager was 174-238.

What he brought to the job wasn’t a winning percentage, it was a steady hand for a young, unformed roster. Players and reporters repeatedly praised his calm, self-deprecating style; he walked the clubhouse with confidence, spoke Spanish fluently in a room full of Latin American players, and had a reputation for treating everyone consistently, win or lose. In spring 2017, the Phillies signed him to a contract extension, and Mackanin talked openly about wanting to reach 50 consecutive years in professional baseball as the Phillies’ manager.

A surprising end

It didn’t happen. Despite stretches of improvement in 2017, the Phillies stumbled to one of the worst records in baseball, and on September 29, 2017 — with just days left in the season — the club announced Mackanin would not return as manager in 2018, barely five months after signing that extension. General manager Matt Klentak wanted his own hire, someone aligned with a more analytics driven approach to instruction and game planning; that hire turned out to be Gabe Kapler. Mackanin finished out the final games of the 2017 season and then transitioned into a front-office role as special assistant to the general manager, a position in which he evaluated players across the Phillies’ system and around the league to help inform trades and roster moves.

Life after the dugout

Mackanin worked in that advisory capacity for three seasons, largely out of the public eye, scouting from his home base in Arizona. His run with the organization ended for good in October 2020, when the Phillies — citing pandemic-related financial losses that ownership projected at “substantially more than $100 million” for the year — cut their pro scouting staff. Mackanin, then 69, was let go alongside several scouts, including former third baseman Dave Hollins. It closed out a Phillies association that had spanned, in various forms, more than a decade, and capped a baseball journey that began in a Virginia diner nearly half a century earlier.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for September 5

  • September 5, 1913 – In a doubleheader with Boston, the Phillies scored only once in 19 innings, winning the opener 1-0 before playing a 10-inning scoreless tie in the nightcap.
  • September 5, 1930 – George Earnshaw won his 21st game of the season as the Athletics beat Boston 5-1 at Shibe Park, improving to 92-45 during the dynasty run that would bring Philadelphia its second straight World Series title.
  • September 5, 1934 – The Phillies released future Hall of Famer Hack Wilson.
  • September 5, 1955 – Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe single-handedly beat the Phillies, earning his 20th win of the year while also hitting a three-run home run – his seventh of the season, a new record for National League pitchers.
  • September 5, 1976 – Larry Christenson hit two home runs and picked up the win in a 3-1 victory over the Mets.
  • September 5, 2004 – Mike Lieberthal and Jimmy Rollins both homered in the third inning on the way to a 4-2 win over the Mets, setting a new team record for most home runs at home in a season.
  • September 5, 2008 – The Phillies signed Tadahito Iguchi.
  • September 5, 2018 – The Phillies lost Ben Lively off waivers to Texas.

ICYMI

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for September 5

  • Al Orth (born 1872) – Nicknamed “the Curveless Wonder,” he pitched for the Phillies from 1895 to 1901, winning 100 games and throwing 14 shutouts before being dealt to Washington; he later became the first pitcher to win 100 games in both leagues.
  • Nap Lajoie (born 1874) – The Hall of Fame second baseman starred for the Phillies from 1896 to 1900 before jumping across town to the Athletics when the American League formed in 1901.
  • Cap Crowell (born 1892) – A right-handed pitcher who appeared for the Athletics in 1915 and 1916, going 2-11 in a brief big league career after signing as an amateur free agent out of Brown University.
  • Don Rader (born 1893) – A utility infielder whose career bookended a stint with the 1913 White Sox and a brief return to the majors with the Phillies in 1921.
  • Nap Lajoie (born 1874) – Played for both the Phillies and Athletics. Lajoie won the American League’s first Triple Crown in 1901, batting .426 – still the highest single-season average in AL history.
  • Max Bishop (born 1899) – Known as “Camera Eye” for his elite plate discipline, he anchored the Athletics dynasty that won three straight AL pennants (1929-31) and back-to-back World Series titles in 1929-30.
  • Merv Shea (born 1900) – A catcher who returned to the majors as a Phillies coach in 1944 and, at age 43, appeared in seven games that year as the oldest player in the National League.
  • Bill McGhee (born 1908) – A first baseman/outfielder who played two wartime seasons for the Athletics, in 1944 and 1945.
  • Jeff Brantley (born 1963) – A veteran reliever who pitched for the Phillies in 1999-2000, taking over closer duties in 2000 after entering camp as the team’s set-up man.
  • Calvin Maduro (born 1974) – A right-hander from Aruba who debuted with the Phillies in 1996, one of the first Aruban-born players to reach the majors.
  • Rod Barajas (born 1975) – A catcher who served as Carlos Ruiz‘s backup for the 2007 Phillies, helping the club to an NL East title.

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