Former Nationals interim manager John McLaren is now in Poland teaching baseball to the parts of the world where the sport needs to be spread
“Hey guys, it is good to see you again’’, said former Nationals coach and manager John McLaren, 73, standing in front of the first-base dugout at a baseball complex in central Poland on a sun-splashed May afternoon.
“We have some of you young guys trying out today and we are trying to do things the right way”. Doing baseball the right way could be the motto for McLaren, who is best known to Nats’ fans as the interim manager for three games before Davey Johnson took over in 2011.
A baseball lifer who was with the Nationals from 2009-11, Texas native and Arizona resident McLaren returned to the central European country for the second straight year to spread his form of the baseball gospel. Having coached in several countries since his days as a Major League coach ended, McLaren assisted former MLB reliever Dennis Cook as a Polish national team coach in 2024.
With Cook waiting for the birth of his first grandchild, McLaren was in charge the weekend of May 1-4 in Kutno as the Polish national team held tryouts and a camp with players ranging in age from early teens to mid-20s. The big event on the calendar this year for the Polish national team is the annual Prague Baseball Week in late June in Czechia, formerly called the Czech Republic.
“This thing in Prague is a big deal”, McLaren told about 25 players who descended on Kutno for the first day of tryouts. “I met with Major League Baseball (in March in Arizona) and they are coming to Prague and one of the reasons is to look at us. We are making strides”. Specifically, McLaren met in March in Arizona with Jim Small, the president of the World Baseball Classic.
“We need to keep getting better and better” McLaren told the young Polish players. “This is a big tournament in Prague. All of the big boys (the top teams in Europe) will be there. They know who we are. We need to keep pushing the envelope. We need to get better. Let’s keep fighting”.
McLaren has coached baseball around the world since his last coaching gig in the majors – with the Phillies in 2017. A minor leaguer in the Astros’ system who began his playing career in Covington, Virginia in the Appalachian League, McLaren managed Seattle from 2007-08 and was also a coach with the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Reds and Tampa Bay.
He was a coach for the USA team at the World Baseball Classic in 2006, has coached the national teams of Italy and China and the sport has taken him to Dubai, Germany, the Netherlands, Colombia, Venezuela and Japan.“I love teaching baseball,” he said.
Another key American with the Polish national team is venture capitalist Paul Bragiel, who has Polish roots and grew up in the Chicago suburbs. Bragiel has a myriad of sports interests – he has provided financial backing to a pro men’s basketball team in Warsaw and to hoop clubs in Africa and was a cross-country ski coach for Colombia and Tonga in the 2018 Winter Olympics. “Working with John is an amazing experience”, said Bragiel, 47, who arrived in Poland on April 30 after attending a major basketball event in Senegal”. He is a baseball lifer.
John was more than happy to come again to Poland. We talk a couple of times a week; we have become buddies. I am the de facto general manager.” Cook, who pitched in the World Series for the Marlins and Mets, will manage Chatham in the Cape Cod League this summer. “Paul is our main guy right now. He is the glue that is keeping this together”, McLaren said.
Another American who assisted as a coach for the camp and tryouts was Phil Richmond, 35, a native of Iowa who pitched in several pro indy leagues in North America and has lived in Warsaw for several years. He is a key coach for the Centaury baseball club in the Polish capital.
Last summer in Kutno, the Poles mounted a ninth inning comeback but lost by one run to Lithuania and just missed a chance at qualifying for the European championships this year. So a consolation prize will be Prague Baseball Week – which extended an invitation to Poland, according to Bragiel. The Polish national team was ranked 65th recently in the World Baseball Softball Confederation, up seven spots from the previous year.
“We are trying to promote baseball in Poland”, said McLaren, sitting in a hotel in Warsaw before the weekend in Kutno, a city of about 42,000 people. “There are so many challenges, but we made big strides last year. I think we are on the radar screen (globally) right now. We need to keep pushing”.
Kutno is the home of Little League Baseball for Europe/Africa and the site of a youth training clinic by the late former Major Leaguers Stan Musial and Moe Drabowsky in the 1980s. Drabowsky is one of four natives of Poland to appear in the majors, while Hall of Famer Musial was born in western Pennsylvania to a father who was a Polish immigrant. One of the fields in Kutno is named for Musial.
McLaren is no stranger to Hall of Famers. While with Seattle, he managed Ichiro Suzuki and as a coach with the Mariners, McLaren worked with Ken Griffey, Jr. and Randy Johnson. This summer, McLaren plans to be in Cooperstown when Suzuki goes into the Hall of Fame.
Nearly a decade and a half after working for the Nationals, McLaren still has a lot of respect for general manager Mike Rizzo and he has fond memories of being around Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn during his time in Washington. Another highlight for McLaren was being in the first-base dugout at Nationals Park when Stephen Strasburg made his MLB debut in 2011, fanning 14 batters in seven innings against the Pirates. “That was a playoff atmosphere,” McLaren said.
McLaren lived in Falls Church, Virginia for part of his time in the D.C. area. “I am a big Mike Rizzo fan. He’s an old-school guy who uses new information,” McLaren said. The same could be said of McLaren, whose baseball acumen has taken him around the world.