Hanford High alum has 'dream come true' with Miami Marlins

Mar. 3—HANFORD — After more than a decade in the minor leagues as a coach, Keith Johnson will get his opportunity in the MLB.

The Hanford High School alum was named the first-base coach for the Miami Marlins in December. He was previously the manager of the Marlins' Triple A affiliates the last two seasons.

"To get this opportunity, it's a dream come true," Johnson, who graduated from Hanford High in 1989, said. "I'm just excited for the team, I'm excited for the season to get going and see us take another step forward in what hopefully becomes a lot of championships."

He called it a "long grind" to get to where he's at. From being drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1992 to beginning his coaching career in 2004, Johnson, 49, has more than three decades of experience in baseball.

"My job was to help get those 25 players on any given night better," he said. "Now, it's a different opportunity and I'm just excited about it. I'm excited for our players."

And all that experience has led him to understand what baseball is all about.

"It's about people, first and foremost," Johnson said. "I love the game, I'm a student of the game, but I'm more here for the players and I'm going to do my best to just create relationships with these guys and try to find ways to get their best effort on a nightly basis and get them to perform and just have fun and be themselves."

Although he's only been the first-base coach for a couple of months, Johnson already has relationships with some of the players from coaching them in the minors. The veterans that he hasn't had as much face time with, he's continuing to build those relationships every day.

"At the end of the day, it's just about being there for them, having their back, letting them know that you can be trusted, and you have their best wishes in mind at all times," Johnson said.

According to Baseball Reference, Johnson was the fifth and last player from Hanford High School to make it to the major leagues. His lone season in the MLB came in 2000 with the then-Anaheim Angels. He had seven plate appearances in six games with two hits, two runs and two walks in four at-bats.

The former infielder had a much more extensive playing career in the minors, where his career spanned from 1992-2003. Most of his time was spent in the minor league affiliates of the Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels.

Now with the Marlins, Johnson said he was following in the footsteps of Ryan Bowen, another product of Hanford High School, who played five seasons in the MLB from 1991-1995. Bowen played two years with the Houston Astros before being chosen in the 1992 Expansion Draft by the then-Florida Marlins.

"He was one of my idols when I was coming up," Johnson said.

He also added that Tim Scott and Reggie Garcia were other baseball players he looked up to when growing up. Scott spent seven years in the MLB and Garcia spent two years in the minors.

During the shortened 2020 season, the Marlins went 31-29 and finished in second place in the National League East, four games behind the eventual division champions Atlanta Braves (35-25). However, the Marlins made the playoffs for the first time since 2003.

"I can't overstate how many good people there are over here," Johnson said. "From the front office to the major league staff to the minor league staff to the support staff to everybody over here, there's just a number of quality people."

Miami went on to sweep the Chicago Cubs 2-0 in the NL wild card round before being swept themselves, 3-0, by the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS. The Marlins are scheduled to host the Tampa Bay Rays on Opening Day.

"I'm just looking for our guys to go out, have some fun playing this game, play it free, and just go out and do what we do," Johnson said. "Not worry about anybody else's expectations and where we should be ... or anything like that. But just us go out there and do the things that we need to do on a nightly basis and let the chips fall where they may."

Noe Garcia can be reached at (559) 583-2431 or ngarcia@hanfordsentinel.com. Follow Noe on Twitter at @noecarlosgarcia.