CLEARWATER, Fla. - The first day of Pete Mackanin's baseball career ended in a small diner in a tiny Virginia town. He would have never guessed that sitting alone with a plate of fried chicken would be the start of a baseball odyssey that enters its 49th consecutive season Monday.
Mackanin, now the Phillies manager, was then simply trying to find his way in the game he grew to love as a kid on Chicago's South Side. The Washington Senators drafted Mackanin a month earlier, but his start was delayed after he broke his thumb in a high school all-star game.