McKeon, His Future Shaky, to Deliver Speech to Owner

Jack McKeon, Padre vice president/baseball operations, has prepared an elaborate speech and will address his precarious position at noon today in a meeting with team chairman Tom Werner.

Sources said McKeon plans to leave the organizational meeting knowing whether the Padre ownership will retain him or fire him once they find a successor.

“I really don’t know what’s going to happen in the meeting,” McKeon said Thursday, “but I would think it would come up.”

The meeting, scheduled four weeks ago, was designed to discuss the budget and the club’s direction. Yet, with swirling speculation surrounding McKeon’s future, and the club openly interviewing candidates for his job, McKeon intends to find out if he is wanted.

The Padre ownership group surreptitiously has hired Tal Smith as a consultant to conduct the front-office interviews. His services originally were sought by the new ownership group to appraise the club’s value, but he was retained when the Padres decided that they wanted an independent party to recommend candidates for possible vacancies in the front office. Smith, who will attend today’s meeting, had worked for the Padres for about seven years as a consultant, but was fired during the winter.

McKeon, who has one more year on his contract that will pay him $400,000, was toying with the idea of issuing an ultimatum, friends said, but decided that a speech would be the best approach, and has been preparing it for three days.

In his speech, according to sources, McKeon will review his accomplishments in his 10 years with the Padre organization, talk about the direction of the club, and close by asking if the ownership wants him to be part of the future.

It’s unknown just how Werner will respond.