BY KEITH LIPPOLDT
klippoldt@gbtribune.com
Few people have a predetermined career path in life. For some it’s taking over the family business or farm. For others it may be living off the fortunes of your family. But the lucky ones grow up in a baseball house and later get paid to watch baseball.
Great Bend native Mike Keenan is in the latter group. A 1977 graduate of GBHS, Keenan’s baseball roots can be traced back to his father, John Keenan, and great-grandfather Bert Wells, both scouts for the Dodgers organization. Wells scouted for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers for 35 years. John was a LA Dodgers scout for 37 years.
“Getting to see what my dad and great-grandpa did was pretty cool,” Keenan said. “I knew by the time I got to high school I wanted to be either a Division I baseball coach or a scout.
“Having those guys teach me the game was great. I listened to everything they had to say. They loved talking about the game and I learned all I know from them. I just listened and learned. It was so much different back then. When we were growing up, we listened to our elders. Kids, nowadays, they talk back and don’t listen. They already know it all.”
When the 2025 baseball season opens, Mike will be entering his 35th season as a Major League scout. Ironically, Mike’s first nine years were spent working for the San Francisco Giants, the Dodger’s arch-rival. He then spent two years with the San Diego Padres and the past 23 with the Cincinnati Reds.
Before getting to that point in his life, Keenan played baseball at Barton County Community College and later at Bethany College in Lindsborg. From there he earned his master’s degree from Kansas State, where he also worked as an assistant baseball coach for the Wildcats. After three years at KSU, the program no longer had the money to fund his position, so he moved back to Great Bend to live with his parents, John and Ersa.
Two long months had gone by when Mike, who was working as a volunteer assistant at Barton County for Mike Warren, received a call from Allen County Community College Head Coach Val McLean offering him an assistant coaching position, which he accepted. His stay at Allen was short-lived, though. Over that Christmas break, Keenan answered a call from San Francisco offering him an interview to be the Area Scout for the Giants. The interview went very well, and Keenan became a scout for the Giants that day.
This would lead to some interesting times within the family.
“The Dodgers and Giants have hated each other since the beginning of time,” Keenan said. “As hard as this was for my mom and dad, they had a cake made up with the Giants logo and hung a big Giants banner in the living room. It was all good after that, but it was really hard on my dad.”
Although they both worked in the Midwest, John and Mike only occasionally saw each other during scouting season. But he did meet up with one of John’s best friends, Joe Ford, who scouted for the Toronto Blue Jays. And it was Ford that taught him the ropes of scouting.
“Joe Ford was a big influence on my scouting career, as well,” Keenan said. “I was living in Norman, and Joe and I were at the same ballpark pretty much every day. I would listen and watch and learn. Back then the saying was, ‘the first five years you’re just learning where the ballparks are at before you actually learn how to scout.’ Now these guys come in and they have all the answers without even knowing the questions.”
Keenan has signed some players who excelled at the Major League level. Some of the notables are relief pitcher turned starter Russ Ortiz, who finished fourth in the Cy Young voting one year. Travis Wood was a starting pitcher who pitched in the World Series for the Cubs and Doug Mirabelli, a catcher from Wichita State who played for four MLB teams.
One of his prouder moments was a phone call he made to a senior at the University of Michigan named Bobby Scales. Scales was not going to receive more than a $1,000 signing bonus. Scales’ dad was on the other line, and he told Mike his son had a good job waiting for him with Nike. Mike calmly said ‘That’s fine, if that’s what he wants to do, then do it. But I think he wants to play baseball.’ Bobby chimed in and told his dad to be quiet because he was going to sign.
“I’d never actually met the kid. I had just talked to him on the phone. I was in Des Moines watching the Cubs Triple A team he played for,” Keenan said. “He was walking in from left field, and I introduced myself to him. He said, ‘Man, I’m glad you yelled my name. I’ve been wanting to meet you since the day you drafted me.’”
One area of scouting that can’t be controlled is the weather. Keenan has posted pictures from stadiums where everyone is wearing parkas to stay warm. He says he prefers the warm weather until it turns “swampy.”
In spite of the fact he is eligible to retire, he currently has no plans to do so.
“As long as I’m having fun and the Reds still want me, I’m still going to work,” he said. “Who knows. I may get tired of driving and just decide it’s time. That’s where I’m at.”
When retirement does come along, Keenan will not have trouble staying busy. He is an avid fisherman, loves watching all K-State sports and has become fond of traveling in the past several years, including trips to Germany, the Bahamas and St. Thomas.
As of yet, Keenan doesn’t have a World Series ring, but he’s been a part of several playoff teams. But he really likes the makeup of this group of Cincinnati Reds.
“We’ve got a lot of young, athletic, talented position players,” he said. “If we can get our pitchers to hold up, yeah, we can be pretty good.”
Community Connections is a regular feature of the Great Bend Tribune. The Tribune welcomes readers to submit names of individuals they would like to see featured in a future story. Send suggestions to news@gbtribune.com and explain their “community connection.”
