"Now Batting #11 Hal McRae......" For 19 seasons total with 15 of them playing for the Kansas City Royals Hal McRae graced us with his bat from 1968,1970 to 1987. He was a 3 time All-Star, played on the 1985 World Series Champion Kansas City Royals & later would manage them from 1991-1994 & then manage the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as they were called then from 2001-2002.
Hal started his career with Cincinnati in 1968. He played for the Reds until 1972 then along with Wayne Simpson he was traded to Kansas City. As I mentioned he played 15 years with the Royals if you ask me he came at the time when ya say DH Hal is the first name I think of cause the DH was first introduced in 1973 every time when I would look at the Kansas City box scores there was McRae DH a couple of times it would say OF but that's cause he was outfielder by trade but I will always remember him as DH even though I am not a huge fan of it.
Hal as I mentioned was a 3 time All-Star 1975,1976,1983. He played in 4 different World Series 1970 & 1972 with Cincinnati Reds & then in 1980 & 1985 with the Royals. He led the American League in RBIs in 1982. There's key moments I will remember watching the highlights of Hal when he played back in 1972 NLCS he was at bat when George Foster(Did ya see his piece in the series if not I think ya should) scored the winning run in Game 5 on a wild pitch it was Hal Jumping all around like a little kid as Foster scooted home from 3rd base. Another moment was in 1977 ALCS Game 2 when Hal took out Willie Randolph (Another member of this line up coming soon) breaking up a possible double play at time now ya can't due that sorta thing but then ya could cause that to me is baseball. The 3rd moment is seeing Hal standing at home plate coming to bat just moments after teammate George Brett took Rich Gossage deep to put the Royals up in top of the 9th of a July 24th 1983 at Yankee Stadium only to watch Brett being called out for putting too much Pine Tar on his bat & trying to keep George from killing the umpire at the time.
However in 1976 when this writer of this blog was only 1 years old at the time later was reading what happened in the batting races how both batting average winners won their respective titles on very questionable ways. The National League Batting Champ was Bill Madlock (Did ya see his piece as well) with Ken Griffey Sr. (He too has a piece in the series too) the runner-up could had won the title only losing to Bill by going 0 for 4 in the final game. The American League title also came down to the last game as well in fact the top 4 players fighting for the title played in the same game the 4 players were Hal,George Brett,Rod Carew,Lyman Bostock. Each were trying to win the title however it was Brett winning it by a few percentage points .3333 to .3326 how Brett won lead to controversy he won it on a 9th inning inside-the-park home run while Twins manager Gene Mauch called for being racist which to some reports untrue cause when Hal came up for his final at bat he grounded out to the shortstop while Hal always claimed Steve Brye was told to misjudge Brett's fly ball to give him the title.
Hal was an RBI leader for the Royals for most of the time he generally was batting behind Brett in the lineup. He was a great player for those middle 1970s run that the Royals had winning 3 years in a row the American League Western division 1976,1977, & 1978 only to always losing to the Yankees all 3 years. Then in 1980 the Royals thanks to Brett & McRae hitting finally helped them by beating the Yankees onto Kansas City's first ever appearance in the World Series unfortunately they would lose it to the Phillies 4-2, then Royals reappeared in the playoffs again in 1984 only to be swept by the Detroit Tigers. The following year they made the playoffs again this time won it against the Toronto Blue Jays 4-3 before taking on the St. Louis Cardinals known as the I-70 series which the Royals won also 4-3.
So does deserve to be here in the set in my opinion yes only cause he showed by leadership being an RBI leader for the Royals so what's your vote lmk in the comments below. Coming up next to plate in this series is Jack Clark by the way the photo on this card might be when Hal was a manager for the Royals.
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