Like father, like son - Hal and Brian McRae of the Kansas City Royals baseball team - interview

Ebony, Oct, 1991 by Douglas C. Lyons

T'S a young ballplayer's dream come true. With the bases loaded, Brian McRae of the Kansas City Royals steps up to the plate, eyes the pitcher and then hammers his first major-league grand-slam home run.

Not far away, Hal McRae shows little emotion as he watches the ball sail over the outfield wall. He is thinking about the team. So when his son returns to the dugout, the elder McRae greets him as stoically as he would any other Royals player who just drove in four runs-with a simple handshake.

At 46, Hal McRae is the Royals' manager, and his 24-year-old son, Brian, is the team's lead-off hitter and regular center fielder. Baseball may be a family affair for many fans, but to hear the McRaes tell it, there are more important concerns than being one of the game's few father-son acts.

"i have a job to do, and he has a job to do," says McRae the manager. "When we come to the ballpark, we know what we have to get done. So you don't stop to say, Hey isn't this great!' The work goes on. " Echoes McRae the player: "I don't see this as being a big deal because this isn't the big picture. The picture isn't about my dad and me. It's trying to win ball games."

Like father, like son.

As baseball's royal family, the McRaes have already etched their names in the major-league record books. Last May, Hal McRae was named the Royals' manager, becoming the game's fourth major-league skipper to manage his son.

Both men are hard-nosed athletes who mince few words about the game of baseball, or anything else. According to them, the fact that they are a part of sports history couldn't have happened at a more inconvenient time.

This summer was Brian McRae's first full season as a major-league player and Hal McRae's first year as the manager of a team that has scraped the bottom-floundering in seventh place for most of the season-of a very tough American League West division.

Add to that the natural father-son conflict that stems from two competitive athletes who happen to play the same sport on the same team, and suddenly the thrill of coaching a son and playing for a father begins to wear a little thin.

"I don't get caught up in 'I'm watching my son play every day,"' says McRae the manager. "I'm watching 25 guys play every day. My son is one of those 25." Says McRae the player, "I don't make too much of it because there are 24 other guys on the team, and we're trying to contribute to win games. I don't make a big deal of all the press [on the father-son angle] because it's irrelevant. "

Like father, like son.

Sometimes the father-son story can be downright irritating. Being the boss' son isn't easy in a game where individuals are judged by their performances on the field, and, under the media spotlight, both men seem to go out of their way to be, well, professional.

Part of the pair's persona of professionalism stems from the obvious political and public relations demands of the game. Baseball is a team sport. No manager would last long in the job by showing favoritism to a player-particularly if the player happened to be his son. At the same time, a player would have a hard time earning the respect of his teammates if they felt he was favored by the manager-particularly if the manager happened to be his father.

So, the McRaes do their best to keep the family feelings in check. "It's not overt," says Johncyna (pronounced John-Seen-A) McRae, who is squarely in the middle of the two athletes as Hal's wife and Brian's mother. "Hal has to downplay it, but when he gets home, he'll say, Did you see my son play?"'

In public, however, the two McRaes play the professional role to the hilt.

According to local photographers, the McRaes are rarely together on the field. Off the field, the two men go their separate ways; the manager to his apartment in Kansas City, Mo., the

layer to an apartment in a suburb in neighboring Kansas. "i really don't know where he lives in Kansas City," Hal McRae says of his son. "i haven't been to his place, and he hasn't been to my place. And that's the way it should be. We see enough of each other at the ballpark. We get the talking we need to get done at the ballpark. "

Despite their age difference, Hal and Brian McRae took very similar paths toward careers in major-league baseball.

Harold Abraham McRae grew up around baseball in Avon Park, Fla. His father, Willie James McRae, was a player and manager in the all-Black baseball leagues in Central Florida and it seemed every kid played the game.

From those humble beginnings, McRae went on to star in the majors. Originally drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in 1965, he became a Royals player in 1972 and spent 14 seasons amassing an impressive record that included playing in four World Series, three All-Star games and six seasons where he hit .300 or better.

While the elder McRae was away from home playing big-league ball, his oldest son, Brian, was becoming a standout player in his own right.

Brian Wesley McRae also grew up in a baseball environment, spending his time playing ball at Royals Stadium and an empty field behind the McRae home. He even learned to hit left-handed, he says, to avoid losing the ball in a neighbor's yard just behind left field.