Jack McKeon, 81, leans back and takes a puff of his ever-present Padron cigar. He stares off into a cloud of smoke, seemingly searching through an endless hoard of baseball stories — maybe the memory of winning the World Series in 2003 or perhaps the slog of rookie ball in the Midwest.

Chuckling to himself, he returns from his reverie.

"Could you, the Blessed Virgin Mary, intercede with the Lord and convince my father to let me sign a professional contract?" McKeon recalls praying.

It was 1948, McKeon's freshman year at The College of the Holy Cross. There out of obligation, restricted from the fate that awaited him in professional baseball, McKeon learned the power of prayer.

He said these fervent prayers regularly on those cool autumn nights.

McKeon's father, a blue-collar worker without a college degree, refused to let him sign a professional baseball contract.

"All I wanted to do was play baseball, the game I love," McKeon said, "but my father wanted my brother and I to get a degree so we wouldn't have to live his lifestyle."

That Christmas, McKeon's father sat him down and told him that if he promised he would get a college degree, he would have his blessing to sign to play professional baseball.

The legend was born, figuratively speaking, into professional baseball. A hybrid between new school and old school, the epitome of a "lifer."

Retiring this fall, for the second time, McKeon became the second oldest manager in Major League history.

"He is kicking and fighting to stay in the game," said his grandson, Zach Booker, a professional baseball player. "Baseball is his life, everything he does relates to it, he lives it and breathes it."

The game is McKeon's vantage point.

"Oh, it's a beautiful game. I don't understand why all you young people talk about it being a 'grind' playing every day," he said.

McKeon can't help himself; he speaks about the game with a passion similar to the tone of an aged lover.

Trader Jack is the name the game has yielded him after 62 years. His prowess in managing a baseball team is distinct and his methods of trading players championed the notion of purifying a clubhouse for the good of the team. In the early 1990s, he had the audacity to trade away All-Stars such as Sandy Alomar, Jr., Fred McGriff and Gary Sheffield.

In his last tenure as the Florida Marlins' interim manager, McKeon sent budding slugger Logan Morrison down to Triple A New Orleans. He had 17 homeruns at the time and was second on the team in RBIs. The Marlins fanbase was in an uproar over this decision. McKeon was unfazed.

"You come to the field and you talk about 'tweeter' or other 'bookface' things?" McKeon said. "No, when you walk into the clubhouse it's one thing you worry about, baseball. If not, you aren't playing."

There's the old school, stern McKeon, then there's the new school, fun-loving McKeon who will pat a player on the back and tell him a story, saying, "Hey Meat, I got a story for you." "Meat" is a moniker that McKeon gives to almost everyone.

"What's your name? OK, Meat, go on with what you were saying," McKeon siad.

Few know McKeon's hybrid better than Greg Booker, his son-in-law who was a professional pitcher. McKeon traded Booker to the Minnesota Twins for Freddie Toliver in 1989. Snickering, McKeon recalls the trade.

"Yeah, I traded him," McKeon said. "He wasn't pitching well. Next question."

McKeon has the confidence to make the moves he believes are best for the team. Booker even notes that the trade in '89 was best for the team, even though he was McKeon's son-in-law and the trade forced him to move his family.

Booker is now his neighbor and partner in landscaping McKeon's backyard.

"Jack doesn't care what other people think. He is always the same, whether it be cutting the grass or trading an MVP," Booker said. "That's why he is successful, he's his own man." McKeon stories are as constant in his conversations as he has been in baseball the last 62 years.

"Every time I see him, I hear a new story," Booker said. "I keep thinking I've heard them all. Sometimes I think he makes them up. Either way, they are great."

One McKeon story took place in Missoula, Montana about Chuck Weatherspoon, a player of McKeon's in the Pioneer League in 1956. Weatherspoon was notorious for his fear of snakes.

"Hey Meat, let me tell you a story," he said. "I managed this guy in the Pioneer League who was scared to death of snakes, spiders and those little critters. All the guys on the team used to pull pranks on him and put rubber snakes in his equipment. Well, one day we were out on the field right before the game, when Chuck runs out of the clubhouse, stark naked, because the guys put a rubber snake in his jock."

McKeon reclines in his seat, and puffs on his cigar as he laughs out loud at the memory. A car drives by, honking and waving at McKeon. Waving back, McKeon turns and said, "I don't know who the hell that was. Everyone around here (at Elon) knows me. I just smile and wave, it works, try it."

On clear nights in the spring, McKeon stands right outside the gate of Newsome Field at Elon University, smoking his cigar, watching the game he loves. Whispers linger in the dugouts about the legendary Trader Jack's presence.

Sixty-two years after his debut in rookie ball, after his prayers were answered and his father let him sign a contract, McKeon talks about the game with childish excitement and a past master's knowledge.

"Meat, when you play the game, do it how you oughta," he said. "Play it with a lot of kid in ya." McKeon flicks the foot of his cigar onto the sidewalk. With the finish of the Padron still in his mouth, he said, "Be excellent, have fun and make yourself great at this beautiful game. Never lose the kid in you. Look at me, I'm only 58." McKeon smiles and walks away.