John McLaren

Baseball has had its share of lifers whose longtime broad-based associations with the game have provided continuity across generations, but few have matched the breadth of experience of John McLaren. His playing career stopped just short of the majors, but in his post-playing career he filled almost every role imaginable and interacted with players from all around the world. In many respects he became a walking history of the game. His multi-faceted, wide-ranging career has represented both the vagaries of a career in baseball as well as the way the game has evolved since he signed his first professional contract in 1970.

John Lowell McLaren was born on September 29, 1951, in Galveston, Texas, to John “Zeke” and Agella “Jackie” (née Cokins) McLaren.1 He had a sister (Cheryl) and a brother (Pete). His father served in the Navy and held a variety of different jobs, including working as a policeman and a handyman. McLaren’s mother raised the three children and worked in the restaurant business. John’s father was out of the house and not very involved in his upbringing. John recalled that he was much closer to his paternal grandfather than his father, and in fact, he lived with his grandfather’s family until he was six.2

McLaren grew up in Houston and graduated from the city’s Westbury High School, where he twice earned All-City and All-District honors in baseball and lettered in football.3 He later attended Blinn College, Houston Baptist University and the University of St. Thomas, but never earned a degree.4 Shortly after his graduation from Westbury High in the spring of 1970 he was drafted in the seventh round of the MLB June amateur draft by the hometown Houston Astros and signed by scout Gordon Lakey.5 McLaren, a 6-foot, 190-pound catcher, “told his teachers back in elementary school that he was going to make a living in baseball.”6 Astros player personnel director Tal Smith said the team’s scouts liked “his power, his arm and his attitude toward the game.”7 McLaren was assigned to the organization’s rookie-level Appalachian League entry, the Covington Astros.

Beginning with Covington, McLaren’s experience in the minors represented the grind that so many players go through in their quest to reach the major leagues. Indeed, he had multiple stops in the Single-A leagues, seeing time with the Sumter Astros of the Western Carolinas League, the Cocoa Astros of the Florida State League, and the Dubuque Packers of the Midwest League. Those assignments were interspersed with four stints with the Columbus (Georgia) Astros of the Double-A Southern League. McLaren’s 1973 and 1974 seasons in Columbus were the only ones in which he spent a full season with a single club (and he only averaged 75 games played in those two campaigns). In 1975, McLaren was promoted to the Triple-A Iowa Oaks of the American Association and then spent 1976 with the Memphis Blues in the Triple-A International League. After seeing action in only 36 games with Memphis, he determined that there was no real path to reach the majors and retired at the end of that season.

Over the course of his seven minor-league seasons, McLaren played in 531 games, finishing with a .251 batting average. He had 395 hits, 38 of which were home runs, and he drove in 200 runs. For the most part, McLaren was a catcher, but near the end of his minor-league career he played a little bit of first base and even played third base in four games. The early minor-league scouting reports that had tagged him as a “very good defensive catcher who could barely hit his weight” proved to be prescient.8 Looking back, McLaren recalled, “I tried as hard as I could; I tried everything. But I didn’t have a quick enough bat to make it. I could tell in the first three years that it was going to be difficult for me.”9 And yet, his unwillingness to abandon his dream reflected his deep love for the game, one that would be evident in the years to come.

The end of his playing days did not mean the end of his association with professional baseball. In fact, the end of his playing career was hastened by a coaching opportunity. The desire to put the knowledge he had accumulated in his years behind the plate was realized first in 1977, when McLaren served as a coach with the Utica Blue Jays—the Toronto affiliate in the New York-Penn League.10 The genesis of the hiring was a conversation McLaren had the previous season with Toronto Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick, who asked McLaren if he would be interested in coaching after his playing career came to an end.11 When Gillick made clear that he was talking about 1977, McLaren was forced to do a full-scale assessment of his options and concluded that the big leagues were not in his future—at least not as a player. Immediately after he announced his retirement, he joined the coaching ranks as a member of Utica’s staff working under manager Duane Larson.12 It was the beginning of a coaching and managing odyssey that would take him literally around the world.

McLaren followed his season in Utica with a managing stint in Medicine Hat, Alberta, for Toronto’s rookie-league entry in the Pioneer League. He followed that with a return in 1979 to Utica, this time as manager. He returned to Medicine Hat in 1980 before being assigned to manage Toronto’s Single-A Kinston, North Carolina, club in 1981 and 1982. Rising through the ranks, in 1983, he took over the reins of the Double-A Knoxville Blue Jays, leading the team for three seasons, winning the Southern League crown in both 1984 and 1985. His efforts there earned him a promotion to Toronto, where he served as the team’s third-base coach from 1986 to 1990. After the 1990 season, he left the Blue Jays and spent 1991 as the bullpen coach for the Boston Red Sox. He moved on in 1992 as he was hired as the bullpen coach for the Cincinnati Reds. Following his service with multiple teams, he then arrived in Seattle and began a decade-long run on their coaching staff. After serving for two years as bullpen coach, in 1995, he assumed the role of bench coach, but that lasted for only a season before he was moved to third-base coach, a post he held for both the 1996 and 1997 seasons. In 1998, McLaren returned to the dugout, serving as bench coach through the end of the 2002 season.

McLaren’s years of experience on Lou Piniella’s staff gave him a distinctive perspective on the Mariners’ 2001 effort. In looking back at the 2001 season there were two things that especially stood out to him. First, the 1995 season laid a foundation for their later success. “You don’t have 2001 without 1995,” said McLaren. In July 1995, the future in Seattle of the Mariners had been fueled by the rejection by county voters of a referendum on a tax package intended to fund a new baseball stadium, one that would allow the Mariners to move out of the multi-purpose Kingdome. The Mariners offset the turmoil by reaching historic heights under Piniella, “whose leadership [and] fire pushed” the team. The 1995 squad stoked the fans’ imagination, “and built the interest throughout the city for the team.” Their performance that season resonated with the fans who made clear their support for major-league baseball. In coming back from a 13-game deficit in early August to tie the California Angels at season’s end before defeating them in a one-game playoff, they not only claimed their first-ever AL West title and postseason appearance, but they had “started to come together” in a way that gave a hint of what the future might hold for the young talented team. Indeed, after the politicians arrived at an alternative way to fund the building of what became Safeco Field, thus ending talk of the team’s sale and potential relocation, the Mariners’ future looked bright.13

At the same time, in McLaren’s view, no less important to understanding the magnitude of the team’s 2001 accomplishment was the realization that in successive years they had lost three of the best players in the major leagues.14 It began in July 1998 with the midseason trade of Randy Johnson to the Houston Astros and was followed by the trade of franchise icon Ken Griffey Jr. to Cincinnati in February 2000 and the loss of Álex Rodríguez to free agency after the 2000 season. Yet despite the loss of this talent, to the amazement of the baseball world, the 2001 Seattle Mariners powered through the season to win a record 116 games. McLaren recalled that the team simply “refused to lose.”

McLaren admitted that when the 2001 season started, the coaching staff “had no idea what team we had.” What they had was a juggernaut. It was one part Ichiro Suzuki, multiple parts career years from numerous others, and a dose of inspiring leadership from Piniella, whose “passion and competitiveness were infectious.” McLaren, who worked by his side for 14 seasons, said Piniella was “as good a competitor as I’ve had ever been around” and possessed of a “burning desire” to win. McLaren saw Piniella as a combination of three men; he had the “lead, follow, or get out of the way approach” of George Steinbrenner, the “just win” mantra of Billy Martin, and the intelligence and wit of Casey Stengel.

McLaren relished the lessons he learned from Piniella. One that remained ingrained was the importance of never taking your foot off the gas. Reflecting on the 2001 season, McLaren ruefully remembered an early August loss in Cleveland to the Indians. The Mariners jumped out to a 12-0 lead in the fourth inning and 14-2 in the sixth, by which time the Indians had started to pull some of their starters. McLaren suggested to Piniella that perhaps the Mariners should do the same. While Piniella was initially resistant, he ultimately agreed, only to have the Indians come roaring back. Scoring three in the seventh, four in the eighth, and five in the ninth, the Indians knotted the score at 14 before scoring the game-winner with one out in the bottom of the 11th. When it was all over, Piniella was unhappy—to put it mildly. And as McLaren noted resignedly, that game could have been the record win number 117.

But it was not to be nor would there to be a happy ending to the magical season that was 2001. Like others, McLaren recalled the impact of the events of 9/11, saying quite simply that it “interrupted us.” While the Mariners went 12-6 the rest of the way, 9/11 pushed everything back. In the ALCS, after the Yankees took the first two playoff games in Seattle, the Mariners were set back on their heels, and while they avoided a sweep by winning Game Three, the Yankees won the series in five games, ultimately losing the World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

In the aftermath of the loss, while their season was over, their humanity remained evident when, prior to heading back to Seattle, the team visited Ground Zero and the fire station of the first responders. It was, McLaren recalled “such an emotional day,” one that saw “grown men crying.” The team “fell short of their goals for sure,” he observed, but they were reminded of some larger truths. And for all the disappointment, in McLaren’s view it was “as magical a season as any [he] had seen, a special year with special people,” one made all the more memorable by the unprecedented way it rolled out for a team that had no real sense of who they were or what they could do as they left spring training.

Piniella was named the manager of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2003 and took McLaren with him, naming him his bench coach—a position he held for three years. When Piniella left Tampa after the 2005 season, McLaren was a finalist in the race to succeed him, but he lost out to Joe Maddon. He then spent that season with the Devil Rays organization as a scout.

Piniella took the helm of the Chicago Cubs after the 2006 season and asked McLaren to join him. Believing he needed to get out of Piniella’s shadow if he wanted to get a managerial job of his own, McLaren opted instead to return to Seattle where he started the 2007 season as bench coach under veteran manager Mike Hargrove.15 However, when Hargrove surprised the baseball world by resigning midseason, McLaren—whose arm was in a sling because of a recent rotator cuff surgery—was named interim manager.16 It was a position for which he was well prepared, having managed for eight seasons in the Toronto Blue Jays farm system, as well as having managed for nine seasons of winter ball in Colombia and Venezuela.17

Over the course of his many campaigns at multiple levels and in multiple roles, McLaren had compiled comprehensive notebooks containing notes he had made about hitters and pitchers as well as the lessons he had learned over the years from debates and discussions with Piniella and others.18 All of it came into play as he led the Mariners to a 43-41 record over the course of the second half of the season, a record that left the club in second place. The winning mark earned McLaren an appointment as the team’s permanent manager for the 2008 campaign.19 The opportunity proved short lived; when the Mariners got off to a slow start, the club’s ownership undertook a major makeover, firing general manager Bill Bavasi and McLaren within days of each other in mid-June.20

After a tumultuous end to his time with the Mariners, as well as the deaths of both his brother and elderly mother in the space of a few weeks in 2008, McLaren needed to take a step back away from the daily rigors of the game.21 Happily, during the 2009 season he was able to stay connected to the game as a scout for the Tampa Bay Rays while also being able to work through his family challenges.22 In the fall of 2009, the Washington Nationals announced that McLaren would be joining the team as the bench coach, serving under newly-named manager and long-time friend Jim Riggleman.23

McLaren’s scouting took him to Latin America as well as Italy, where he served as a coach for three weeks at a Major League Baseball academy for teenage European prospects. These efforts allowed him to interact with baseball people which helped rejuvenate him, while still being a bit removed from the major league grind.24 But when the Nationals came calling in November 2009, he was ready, recognizing that he was fortunate to get another opportunity. Ironically, this opportunity came at the recommendation of Riggleman, who had previously been named interim manager after McLaren was fired by the Mariners.25 But what goes around comes around, and when the Nationals struggled under Riggleman and he was fired in June of 2011, McLaren once again stepped in as interim manager before the Nationals hired veteran skipper Davey Johnson. McLaren was offered a scouting job within the Nationals organization, allowing Johnson to appoint his own bench coach.

In 2012, McLaren began a four-year stint as a scout for the Oakland Athletics. In 2016, he returned to the major-league coaching ranks, initially taking on the role of catching coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. The following year the former catcher served as the team’s bullpen coach.

As he moved into the later stages of his varied MLB coaching and managing career, John McLaren became increasingly involved in international baseball. Beyond managing winter ball, his first foray into the international arena came in 2006 when he served as the third-base coach for Team USA in the inaugural World Baseball Classic (WBC).26 His involvement did not stop there. He was a coach for the Italian national team in the 2010 Intercontinental Cup, where they won the Bronze Medal—Italy’s first-ever medal in a global baseball tournament.27 McLaren later managed the Chinese national team in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, the 2015 Asian Championship, and the 2017 World Baseball Classic.28 In 2020, he was named to the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Coach Commission. The WBSC is the world governing body for the sports of baseball, softball, and Baseball5, and McLaren’s work reflects his commitment to international baseball.29

In 2020 and 2021, amidst the challenges of the COVID pandemic, McLaren served as the manager of the Flying Chanclas de San Antonio of the Texas Collegiate League.30 In the spring of 2023, he was named manager of the Bluefield Ridge Runners of the Appalachian League. He led the team to a third-place finish in the League’s Eastern Division and enjoyed the position but declined an offer to return at season’s end. Over the course of that summer his involvement in international baseball reached new heights, so he opted to devote his time to the ongoing effort to expand baseball’s international footprint.31

In the summer of 2023, McLaren teamed up with former Mariners pitching star Félix Hernández as part of an effort to bring professional baseball to Dubai.32 Sponsored by Baseball United, a Dubai-based venture, the plan featured four teams representing cities in the United Arab Emirates. The Dubai entry—the Dubai Wolves—would have Hernández as the honorary General Manager while McLaren brought his extensive experience to the dugout as manager.33

As of 2024, it was the latest global endeavor that McLaren has been involved with and it reflects his status as an unabashed booster of the international baseball. Indeed, in talking about it he happily proclaimed, “I love international baseball.” The excitement in his voice was palpable as he described spending eight days around American Thanksgiving 2023 in Dubai, where he had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at the Dubai Polo Club. The trip was focused on efforts to develop an eight-team league that would begin operations by the winter of 2024, and also included a couple of showcase games. Discussions have included players with major-league and international experience. McLaren noted that in recent years professional baseball has been streamed to 127 different countries, a figure that makes clear its global reach and appeal. The hope is that with the support and involvement of former players like Félix Hernández, Adrián Beltré, Mariano Rivera, and Bartolo Colon, among others, and with deep-pocket financial support from American and international businessmen, they can eventually establish teams in India and Pakistan as well as Dubai and many of the other countries that currently field teams and have participated in the world baseball tournaments and the Olympics. McLaren bubbles with excitement as he talks of the prospect for global growth of an enterprise that will allow the sport he loves to play a role in bettering the international community.

In 2024, as John McLaren approached the end of a baseball career that began in the backyard in Texas, he enthusiastically talked about the power of the game and the way it can touch and impact people. He appreciated the opportunity to see parts of the world ranging from Ireland to Belarus to multiple visits to China and marveled at the way baseball “brings people together.” He witnessed politically-based rioting in the streets that gave way to calm when game time rolled around. Baseball can, McLaren believes, be a unifying force. He relished seeing players develop relationships that cross ethnic, racial, and cultural lines. As someone who invariably and regularly cites “the people” as the primary reason for the success of the teams he has been involved with as well as the focus of his baseball memories, McLaren has a deep appreciation for the way baseball can transcend these supposed barriers.

In fact, while he remained involved in the effort to bring the Dubai project to fruition and with his dedication to the international game a recognized part of his baseball identity, in the spring of 2024 McLaren signed on for yet another international assignment. Working alongside fellow international game veteran and former big-league pitcher Dennis Cook, who served as the team’s manager, McLaren spent the spring and summer of 2024 as the bench coach for the Polish National Baseball Team as it sought to qualify for the 2025 European Baseball Championships as a first step toward international prominence.34 While the team came up short in the qualifying tournament, McLaren enjoyed the opportunity to again be involved in baseball on a global basis.

While McLaren’s stint with the Polish national team was expected to mark the end of his career, the lure of international baseball remained strong. Consequently, as 2025 drew to a close, McLaren was managing the Arabia Wolves of Baseball United, the first professional baseball league serving the Middle East and south Asia, whose inaugural season was slated to run from November 14 through December 15 in Dubai.35

John and his wife Maria, an optician, were married in 2002. The union brought him two stepchildren, part of the “package deal,” whom he considers his own, adding that he is very “proud of them.”36 Rounding out the family are four “awesome” grandkids with whom he is very close.37 McLaren moved to Arizona back in the 1970s and as of 2024 made his home in Peoria, Arizona. When he is not continuing his active and multi-faceted involvement with international baseball, McLaren often can be found enjoying himself on the golf course.38

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted baseball-almanac.com and Baseball-Reference.com.

NOTES

1 John McLaren, telephone interview, December 1, 2023. Unless otherwise indicated, all direct quotations attributed to John McLaren come from this interview.

2 McLaren interview.

3 “Astros Ink John McLaren of Westbury,” Baytown Sun (Baytown, Texas), June 11, 1970: 13.

4 “Former MLB Skipper John McLaren to Manage AirHogs in 2018,” American Association of Professional Baseball, https://aabaseball.com/former-mlb-skipper-john-mclaren-to-manage-airhogs-in-2018/

5 John McLaren, Publicity Questionnaire for William J. Weiss, August 15, 1970, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/26928:61599, accessed July 8, 2024.

6 Steve Kelley, “McLaren was patient on Journey to big chair,” Seattle Times, August 7, 2010.

7 “Astros Ink John McLaren of Westbury.”

8 Kelley.

9 Kelley.

10 Don Laible, “Phillies McLaren Began Career with Utica Blue Jays,” Observer-Dispatch (Utica, New York), September 24, 2016.

11 Laible.

12 Laible.

13 Glenn Drosendahl, “Safeco Field, the Seattle Mariners’ long-sought stadium, opens on July 15, 1999,” historylink.org; https://www.historylink.org/file/9565

14 McLaren interview.

15 John McGrath, “Same McLaren for M’s, but his attitude is all new,” News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington), January 25, 2007.

16 Pat Borzi, “An Old Baseball Hand at the Tiller,” New York Times, August 22, 2007.

17 Borzi.

18 Borzi; Kelley.

19 “Mariners’ McLaren follows Bavasi out the door,” CBC, June 19, 2008; https://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mariners-mclaren-follows-bavasi-out-the-door-1.728095

20 “Mariners’ McLaren follows Bavasi out the door.”

21 Baker, “Former Mariners manager John McLaren is glad to be back in the dugout.” Telephone call, John McLaren to Bill Pruden, February 7, 2024.

22 Baker, “Former Mariners manager John McLaren is glad to be back in the dugout.”

23 Geoff Baker, “Former Mariners manager John McLaren is glad to be back in the dugout,” Seattle Times, November 18, 2009.

24 Baker, “Former Mariners manager John McLaren is glad to be back in the dugout.”

25 Patrick Reddington, “Jim Riggleman Returns the Favor, Hires John McLaren Washington Nationals’ Bench Coach,” Federal Baseball, November 17, 2009; https://www.federalbaseball.com/2009/11/17/1162309/jim-riggleman-returns-the-favor.

26 Laible.

27 “Former Team Italy coach John McLaren reunited with Marco Mazzieri on WBSC Coach Commission,” Federazione Italiana Baseball Softball (FIBS) https://www.fibs.it/en/news/former-team-italy-coach-john-mclaren-reunited-with-marco-mazzieri-on-wbsc-coach-commission

28 “Former MLB manager John McLaren joins WBSC Coach Commission,” World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC); https://www.wbsc.org/en/news/former-mlb-manager-john-mclaren-joins-wbsc-coach-commission

29 “Former MLB manager John McLaren joins WBSC Coach Commission.”

30 “John McLaren Named Flying Chanclas Manager for 2020 TCL,” Milb.com; https://www.milb.com/news/tcl-staff-release; McLaren interview; text, John McLaren to Bill Pruden, January 9, 2024.

31 “John McLaren will manage Bluefield Ridge Runners in 2023,” Bluefield Daily Telegraph (Bluefield, West Virginia), April 12, 2023; McLaren interview.

32 “Baseball United announce stellar management team for Dubai franchise,” Arab News, August 14, 2023; https://www.arabnews.com/node/2355131/sport.

33 Geoff Baker, Former Mariner Felix Hernandez joins ownership of Dubai-based Baseball United,” Seattle Times, August 10, 2023.

34 Michael Clair, “Poland hires former MLBer Dennis Cook with hopes for future success,” MLB.com. April 11, 2024; https://www.mlb.com/news/poland-hires-former-mlb-player-dennis-cook-to-manage-team.

35 Jeff Duda, “A Preview of the Inaugural Baseball United Season, World Baseball Network,” worldbaseball,com, November 14, 2025; https://worldbaseball.com/a-preview-of-the-inaugural-baseball-united-season/

36 McLaren interview; Jim Moore, “McLaren set very high bar as hubby,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 21, 2008.

37 Telephone call, John McLaren to Bill Pruden, February 7, 2024.

38 McLaren interview.