Interesting story over at the Globe about Pete Mackanin’s day interviewing for the Red Sox managerial job yesterday.
If you’re unaware of Mackanin’s history -- current bench coach for the Phillies, former interim manager for Cincy and Pittsburgh, and loooong time minor league manager and coach -- it’s worth a read just for that. Sounds like an interesting dude who, in a just world, would have gotten a shot before now. Plus he’s a natty dresser and rocks the silver fox look like a boss.
I was struck midway through the article when it said that he spent nine hours -- nine! -- at Fenway with the brass. On what planet do job interviews last nine hours? At the law firm we’d put candidates through a good six hours including lunch and that was for someone who we really didn’t know from Adam. Professionally speaking Mackanin’s past is well-known to the Sox. This is all cut-of-his-jib stuff. I suppose the job is a tad more important than that of a paper-pushing baby lawyer, so I get it.
But what do you do in a nine hour interview? This kind of thing:Mackanin’s interview included a test of his managerial acumen as he was presented with tricky in-game scenarios and asked how he would handle them.
“It’s like I was laboratory-tested by the Boston Red Sox,’’ he said. “It’s kind of an interesting little scenario they put you through, going over strategy in games. A lot of good questions, a lot of different questions, a lot of outside-the-box questions, a lot of inside-the-box questions.’’
One would hope and assume that every team does this sort of thing. Of course, if so, then one would have to explain how certain managers got their jobs.
That snark notwithstanding, I think it would be interesting to put smarty pants bloggers, tweeters and mid-game manager second guessers through that kind of little exercise. I’m guessing we’d have way more trouble with it than even the worst real manager at whom we’ve ever snarked.