Latest / Kustom Conversations / The Call My Parents Got That Started it All | Brian McRae Interview | EP. 07

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The Call My Parents Got That Started it All | Brian McRae Interview | EP. 07 · Kustom Conversations

• 0:00
  Casi Joy: Wow, are you taking life coaching clients?
• 0:02
  Brian McRae: Some of my friends think I do.
• 0:03
  Brian McRae: How long do you have?
• 0:04
  Brian McRae: Like it is now.
• 0:05
  Brian McRae: So you don't know.
• 0:07
  Casi Joy: So like your dad got to get the call that his son was being drafted to the team he was on.
• 0:13
  Brian McRae: And I didn't find out until like three or four hours later.
• 0:15
  Brian McRae: No cell phones, no, you know.
• 0:19
  Casi Joy: Every story is different.
• 0:20
  Casi Joy: Every episode is custom.
• 0:22
  Casi Joy: Get ready to pull back the curtain on your favorite artists, athletes, and entertainers.
• 0:27
  Casi Joy: I'm your host, Cassie Joy, and this is Custom Conversations.
• 0:31
  Casi Joy: Welcome back to Custom Conversations.
• 0:37
  Casi Joy: Today we have a baseball name from Kansas City that you will definitely recognize.
• 0:42
  Casi Joy: He was a first-round draft pick of the Royals, spent 10 seasons in the Major League, and has one of the most unique father-son stories in baseball history.
• 0:53
  Casi Joy: From playing center field at the K to playing for his own dad, he's got some stories.
• 0:58
  Casi Joy: And we're getting into all of it today.
• 1:01
  Casi Joy: Brian McCrae, welcome to Custom Conversations.
• 1:04
  Brian McRae: Thank you for having me on, and uh thank you for the uh the introduction.
• 1:09
  Casi Joy: Hey, you did all the work.
• 1:10
  Casi Joy: I just get to tell people about it.
• 1:11
  Casi Joy: So before we get into your career, you had an interesting upbringing with your dad being Hal McRae, who um played for the Royals, obviously.
• 1:23
  Casi Joy: What was your childhood like when your dad was a professional baseball player?
• 1:28
  Casi Joy: Like was that just normal to you since it was since you were a kid?
• 1:33
  Brian McRae: Well for me, I didn't get it until m much later.
• 1:37
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 1:38
  Brian McRae: You know, I thought growing up my dad was first played with the Reds and then was traded um here in 1972 to to the Royals.
• 1:46
  Brian McRae: But I just thought he was doing what every other dad does.
• 1:49
  Brian McRae: You know, he he just had weird hours.
• 1:51
  Brian McRae: You know, he but I thought he was working providing for the family.
• 1:55
  Brian McRae: I didn't know that what he did was that big of a deal until I got into middle school here in in the Kansas City area, and then other kids would talk about what he was doing in and baseball and and all that.
• 2:09
  Brian McRae: But you know, growing up in a baseball family, you m you move a lot similar to a military family.
• 2:15
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 2:16
  Brian McRae: Where we lived some places for two or three months, he get called up or sent down or moved around.
• 2:23
  Brian McRae: Uh so we were always on the go and and always traveling.
• 2:27
  Brian McRae: I just remember being in a car a lot with my mom and my uncle going to places where where my dad was playing or where where he got working.
• 2:36
  Brian McRae: Yeah, where where he was working and and and getting moved to and you know, be being on the road a lot as as as a little kid and um being able to see him a little bit at the ballpark.
• 2:48
  Brian McRae: I'd go out there at at at some times, but for the most part, um, you know, my younger days were just you know spent with my uncle in a car with my mom during baseball season driving around.
• 3:00
  Brian McRae: And then we lived with my grandparents uh when my dad was in the low minor leagues or just got to the big leagues because my mom was a teacher in in the Bradenton, Florida area, and she made more money as a teacher than my dad did playing professional baseball at that time.
• 3:17
  Casi Joy: What?
• 3:18
  Brian McRae: Yeah, so we all we we all lived with with my grandmother.
• 3:20
  Brian McRae: There was uh six, five or six of us that lived uh in my grandmother's two-bedroom house.
• 3:25
  Brian McRae: So I didn't know it wasn't that big of a deal.
• 3:28
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 3:29
  Brian McRae: And the money wasn't crazy like it is it's not even that cool.
• 3:33
  Casi Joy: Mom is the breadwinner.
• 3:34
  Casi Joy: Right.
• 3:34
  Brian McRae: So so you you didn't know what was going on as far as stature of what somebody's profession was, because everybody was kind of doing doing the same stuff and uh you know the same thing.
• 3:47
  Brian McRae: So as a kid, it wasn't a big deal until late later on, and then I started to get it, and then would you know the attention that the Royals received when is when they were really good from that 76 to 85 period, and when baseball was being talked about a little bit more and guys' salaries were being discussed in the media.
• 4:12
  Brian McRae: But I enjoyed it when I didn't get it and I didn't understand what was going on, and I just thought my dad was just doing regular stuff.
• 4:21
  Casi Joy: Wow.
• 4:22
  Brian McRae: So yeah, I read somewhere that like with your mom being a teacher, that like if you did really well in school, that then on spring break, like is this true that you you would get to like clean the clubhouse and like shine the shoes and do like the bat boy, ball boy duties and and that's what I I enjoyed that better than playing because I got to be around all the guys and I got to see I got to see my dad a lot a lot.
• 4:49
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 4:50
  Brian McRae: And so that was an incentive for me to do well in school is because I got to hang out at the ballpark.
• 4:56
  Brian McRae: Wow, and I really enjoyed that time getting to hang out and learning what it took if I wanted to be a good I was trying to just be a good high school baseball player and you know move move up and see if I could play some college ball.
• 5:11
  Brian McRae: But learning the work ethic, you know, these guys at that level at the top of their game.
• 5:16
  Brian McRae: But you see guys come early, stay late, the extra work that they did, the attention to detail.
• 5:23
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 5:24
  Brian McRae: And I think being around that as a young kid shaped some of my work ethic to where these guys they're in the top one percent of their profession, that but they're still working like they're not.
• 5:37
  Casi Joy: So yeah, um you said you were like working on just trying to be like a good high school baseball player, but you also were a really good football player growing up.
• 5:47
  Casi Joy: So this is what is crazy to me.
• 5:50
  Casi Joy: So you had said you liked football better than baseball growing up.
• 5:54
  Brian McRae: Yes, in high high school.
• 5:55
  Casi Joy: In high school, yeah, yeah.
• 5:56
  Brian McRae: I didn't play uh organized football until the ninth grade.
• 5:59
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 5:59
  Brian McRae: I didn't put on I didn't even know how to put on pads or anything.
• 6:02
  Brian McRae: I didn't know playbook or all that when I first started.
• 6:05
  Brian McRae: I was as raw as could be, other than playing out in the field, um, you know, pickup games with my friends football wise.
• 6:12
  Brian McRae: I had no training of anything dedicated to football until I got into the ninth grade.
• 6:20
  Brian McRae: So it was new to me.
• 6:21
  Casi Joy: But then you were like so ninth grade, and then you're like, Whoa, I'm really good at this.
• 6:26
  Brian McRae: And I liked it because I wasn't compared to my dad.
• 6:29
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 6:30
  Brian McRae: So that's was the appeal to football was I was good at football because I was just good at football.
• 6:36
  Casi Joy: Because that was your thing, too.
• 6:37
  Brian McRae: Not I was good at baseball because my dad was so that that's why football at the high school level started to appeal to me a little bit more.
• 6:46
  Brian McRae: I like gravitated to it a little bit more.
• 6:48
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 6:49
  Brian McRae: And high school football, you get the whole community come out, watch high school football.
• 6:52
  Brian McRae: So it's kind of cool.
• 6:53
  Brian McRae: You wear your jerseys, the game, the game day, and all that.
• 6:56
  Brian McRae: Um high school baseball, you may get a couple parents, some boys, some girlfriends, some some of your buddies will come out.
• 7:03
  Brian McRae: High school baseball doesn't have the same appeal as high high school football.
• 7:09
  Brian McRae: So a lot of that fanfare and the things that were going on for football, that drew me to to playing football a little bit more just because it was different from from from baseball.
• 7:21
  Brian McRae: And the attention that I got was because of what I did and not because of my father.
• 7:26
  Brian McRae: They didn't talk about my father as much when I played football.
• 7:29
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 7:29
  Casi Joy: And but you got a scholarship to KU to play for the yeah.
• 7:34
  Brian McRae: Yeah, I'd signed to origin to play.
• 7:36
  Brian McRae: Oh, you signed?
• 7:38
  Brian McRae: Yes.
• 7:38
  Brian McRae: I I was on I was two months away from enrolling in classes at the University of Kansas.
• 7:44
  Casi Joy: And then the Royals call you up to Royals draft me in the first round.
• 7:50
  Brian McRae: And I'm thinking, well, do I want to go to school?
• 7:52
  Brian McRae: Do I want to play baseball?
• 7:54
  Brian McRae: And I really didn't want to go to school.
• 7:57
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 7:58
  Brian McRae: So that the choice it w it was twofold.
• 8:01
  Brian McRae: I didn't want to go to school and I didn't want to get beat up playing football.
• 8:06
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 8:06
  Casi Joy: But did you think, like, do you think you could have made it in the NFL with football?
• 8:09
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 8:10
  Brian McRae: No.
• 8:10
  Brian McRae: I thought that I'd be a decent college football player at best.
• 8:14
  Casi Joy: And have to study.
• 8:15
  Brian McRae: And have to go to school.
• 8:16
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 8:16
  Brian McRae: And have to go through four or five years of that.
• 8:19
  Brian McRae: And then if I played baseball, I signed at 17.
• 8:24
  Brian McRae: So if I played baseball in four or five years, I'd either be in the big leagues or kind of close to the big leagues.
• 8:31
  Brian McRae: I thought.
• 8:32
  Brian McRae: And if I wanted to go back and play college football, I could go back and play college football at twenty-one or twenty-two years old.
• 8:39
  Casi Joy: True.
• 8:39
  Brian McRae: If baseball didn't work.
• 8:41
  Brian McRae: So I figured that giving baseball a shot, I had a chance to go further in baseball than I did than I did in football.
• 8:51
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 8:51
  Casi Joy: Cause I was wondering before you answered that, I'm like, why would you choose baseball over football when like when you think about it, like the NFL is only like 17 games a season and the MLB is like a million.
• 9:08
  Casi Joy: It's like 162 games.
• 9:11
  Brian McRae: Well the the big the biggest thing for me was there's some things on the football field that everybody did well.
• 9:21
  Brian McRae: I wasn't special.
• 9:23
  Brian McRae: I did I did a lot of things that everybody did on the football field.
• 9:26
  Brian McRae: On the baseball field, there were things that I saw myself doing that other people couldn't do.
• 9:32
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 9:33
  Brian McRae: So I felt that I had a little bit better chance to go further in football in baseball than football, even though I liked football, football better.
• 9:42
  Brian McRae: And then football, you practice more than you play games.
• 9:45
  Casi Joy: Uh-huh.
• 9:46
  Brian McRae: Baseball, you play more games than you practice.
• 9:48
  Brian McRae: And I didn't want to waste reps where nobody got to see it.
• 9:53
  Casi Joy: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 9:54
  Brian McRae: And then then and then I as I said before, the safer sport.
• 9:57
  Brian McRae: And I I'm 60 or 59.
• 10:00
  Brian McRae: I just just turned 59 a couple months ago.
• 10:02
  Brian McRae: And I've had really only one major surgery on my my knee.
• 10:06
  Brian McRae: Um, not a lot of concussions.
• 10:10
  Brian McRae: I still can get around well, I still can play catch.
• 10:13
  Brian McRae: I still can do a lot of activities that guys that played football at my they're they're not walking well and they're have back knee problems, had knee replacement surgery, hips, you know, things like that.
• 10:26
  Brian McRae: So I think it it worked out for the best, even though I like football better at at that time.
• 10:32
  Brian McRae: Baseball was the sport that if I was gonna go further in and have a chance to play at the professional level, it was gonna be baseball.
• 10:39
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 10:39
  Casi Joy: So your dad is already a Royals legend, and then the Royals draft you.
• 10:45
  Casi Joy: Were you excited about that?
• 10:47
  Casi Joy: Or was there a part of you of like, oh my god, now they're gonna just compare us to the game?
• 10:52
  Brian McRae: I didn't think the Royals were gonna draft me.
• 10:53
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 10:53
  Brian McRae: How like was that crazy that's the process to draft is a little bit different now than it was when I played.
• 11:01
  Brian McRae: Um there were scouts at a lot of my high school games down in Florida and my summer league games here, but I don't think the Royals were at too many of my my games.
• 11:13
  Brian McRae: So I thought that the Yankees they were a team that was around a lot.
• 11:18
  Brian McRae: The Angels had scouts, the White Sox.
• 11:21
  Brian McRae: The Royals were one of the last teams I thought I was gonna get drafted by because I did they just weren't around.
• 11:27
  Brian McRae: But I guess since they saw me all the time and they didn't need to need to be around, and I've heard that I was gonna be drafted between the fifth and the tenth round.
• 11:37
  Casi Joy: Mm-hmm.
• 11:37
  Brian McRae: That was what that that's that's kind of what uh the the word on the street was that I was gonna get drafted.
• 11:43
  Casi Joy: Uh so like draft day or are you just like barely beginning?
• 11:49
  Brian McRae: I was in Omaha playing in the Legion baseball tournament with my uh with my high school buddies on on draft day.
• 11:55
  Brian McRae: So when I got the call, or when my parents got the call, I wasn't even home.
• 12:01
  Casi Joy: Oh my god.
• 12:02
  Brian McRae: They didn't it's not televised on TV like like it is now.
• 12:06
  Brian McRae: So you don't know.
• 12:06
  Brian McRae: You you get a call.
• 12:08
  Casi Joy: Like so like your dad got to get the call that his son was being drafted to the team he was on.
• 12:13
  Brian McRae: And I didn't find out until like three or four hours later.
• 12:16
  Brian McRae: No cell phones, no, you know, any any of that.
• 12:19
  Brian McRae: So the the the process was slow, and then when I found out that the Royals had drafted me, and then they're like, We don't want you to play, finish up this tournament.
• 12:29
  Brian McRae: And it's like, well, all my buddies, this is the last go-around, and I'm gonna I'm gonna finish up.
• 12:34
  Casi Joy: They're like, Bud, you're a royal now.
• 12:35
  Casi Joy: Get off the field.
• 12:37
  Brian McRae: Excuse me.
• 12:37
  Brian McRae: So yeah, it was it was it was a hectic, crazy time.
• 12:42
  Brian McRae: You know, I didn't think the Royals were gonna draft me, the Royals draft me.
• 12:47
  Brian McRae: Uh, then we start getting into negotiations of my signing bonus and and all that, and I don't have an agent.
• 12:54
  Brian McRae: My dad uh helped kind of helped me out a little bit in that.
• 12:58
  Brian McRae: But then it's it's weird for him being on the team and then being a representative for his son, yeah, who just got drafted by the team.
• 13:07
  Brian McRae: So all that was kind of it was a weird situation, but we got it all figured out within about a week or ten days, and I signed, um signed with the Royals and and began my journey playing playing minor league ball.
• 13:22
  Casi Joy: Oh my gosh.
• 13:23
  Casi Joy: So now I'm like having visions of like you and your mom and your uncle like following your dad around to these games.
• 13:30
  Casi Joy: Now was like your mom and uncle like, well, I guess we're still at it.
• 13:33
  Casi Joy: Now we gotta file Brian follow Brian around.
• 13:36
  Brian McRae: The good thing about the Royals system, especially in the low minor leagues, it was in my hometown of Florida.
• 13:42
  Casi Joy: Oh.
• 13:43
  Brian McRae: So I got to play 20 minutes, 25 minutes for uh the first couple years of minor league ball where I grew up.
• 13:51
  Brian McRae: So I could stay at home if I wanted to stay at home.
• 13:54
  Brian McRae: I had my friends from high school, and like you know, I was 17 and I was playing against a lot of older kids.
• 14:01
  Brian McRae: So being able to hang out still with my age group, people that I was familiar with, people that I grew up with in my hometown, I think that helped me out a lot too because I wasn't sent off to some far-off city on the other side of the country.
• 14:18
  Brian McRae: You know, I was playing spring training, was in my hometown, rookie ball my first year was in my hometown, instructional league in the offseason was in my hometown.
• 14:26
  Brian McRae: So all these things I was doing my first two or three we years with the Royals were basically in my backyard.
• 14:32
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 14:33
  Brian McRae: And you So that helped a lot in my development.
• 14:35
  Casi Joy: Totally.
• 14:36
  Casi Joy: And you got to play with your dad, right?
• 14:38
  Brian McRae: In a spring training training, yeah, in 1986, yep.
• 14:41
  Casi Joy: Which was like the only time that that's or one of the few times that's like happened in we we looked it up.
• 14:47
  Casi Joy: Some there's some stat there.
• 14:49
  Brian McRae: Yeah, it's Ken Griffey Jr.
• 14:52
  Brian McRae: and his dad played in a regular season game together in 1989.
• 14:58
  Brian McRae: But I think that my father and I in '86 in a spring training game, we were the first that they could find on record to to be in the same same lineup of so I and it even though it was a spring training game, it's still a sanctioned game.
• 15:14
  Brian McRae: But it but uh so I think we had the first game together, the Griffeys had the first regular season game three years later.
• 15:22
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 15:22
  Casi Joy: Was your I keep going back to your mom and your uncle now because I just I'm just like picturing it like were they just like, oh my gosh, look at them both together now?
• 15:30
  Casi Joy: Like are they?
• 15:31
  Brian McRae: Yeah, that it was it was good to because the family been kind of spread out all over the place.
• 15:35
  Brian McRae: And um, being being together and now being on the team, and that was the year after they won the World Series.
• 15:45
  Casi Joy: Oh man.
• 15:46
  Brian McRae: So that was a neat thing too.
• 15:47
  Brian McRae: I graduate high school, I signed with the Royals, start playing minor league ball, the Royals win the World Series.
• 15:53
  Brian McRae: I get to go to spring training with the team that won World Series the year before, and then get to play in uh in a game with with my dad early in spring training camp.
• 16:02
  Brian McRae: So there was a lot of fun things, a lot of first, but the family was together for the first time in a long time and not spread out all over the country.
• 16:11
  Brian McRae: So that was the best part of it all was a lot of family and friends got to witness it all together because we were real real close to where I grew up, where spring training was.
• 16:23
  Casi Joy: Beautiful.
• 16:24
  Casi Joy: So how long that that you that from when you joined the Royals to when your dad becomes um a coach there?
• 16:33
  Brian McRae: My dad played until the eighty seven season.
• 16:36
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 16:37
  Brian McRae: And then I'm moving my way up through the minor leagues there.
• 16:40
  Brian McRae: Eighty eight and eighty-nine, he coaches, I think, with the Pirates in the minor leagues.
• 16:46
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 16:47
  Brian McRae: And then he went to Montreal.
• 16:49
  Brian McRae: I got called up in August of ninety.
• 16:53
  Brian McRae: And then my dad um got came to the Royals in ninety-one, I believe.
• 16:59
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 17:00
  Brian McRae: Uh, midway through the year the year of ninety ninety one.
• 17:03
  Brian McRae: So it was about a four-year gap or so there between me getting to the big leagues and my dad and my dad retiring, and he he he was a hitting coach with the Montreal Expos uh in the big leagues, and I and he did a couple years with the Pirates and the minor leagues in between him retiring and then us getting back together.
• 17:23
  Casi Joy: So with him coaching you, were do you did you ever feel like he was like treating you harder than anybody else so that it didn't look like you were getting like special treatment or anything?
• 17:35
  Brian McRae: It was odd the first full year.
• 17:37
  Casi Joy: Just trying to figure out the balance.
• 17:39
  Casi Joy: Right, because like what does our relationship?
• 17:41
  Brian McRae: A lot of places that we went to different cities that we go to on the road, they'd want to talk about us father and son deal and not talk about the team.
• 17:54
  Brian McRae: And so that was odd for me because I didn't want the focus to be on us.
• 18:02
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 18:02
  Casi Joy: Did that make you guys like distance yourselves from each other a little?
• 18:06
  Brian McRae: I don't know if we distance ourselves, but it just it was it was just a weird deal because the focus was on two people when there's a full team and how we're playing, and that's where the focus we felt it should be.
• 18:17
  Brian McRae: So it was a little uneasy going to different places and they want to ask the same old question and want to do that.
• 18:23
  Casi Joy: That's like awkward.
• 18:23
  Casi Joy: You're like, no, don't ask that again.
• 18:25
  Brian McRae: Yeah, just let me just let me go out and play.
• 18:27
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 18:27
  Brian McRae: Um so I struggle with it in the season in the 1992 season, um, the first full season that my dad was manager, and I was we we were together.
• 18:38
  Brian McRae: That that was not a good year personally for me or the team.
• 18:42
  Brian McRae: We didn't we didn't play well.
• 18:43
  Brian McRae: Um, and I think a lot of it was just I just I didn't handle everything well, and we got off to a slow start, and then kind of snow snowballed, and then mentally just couldn't get out of the funk that that uh that the team was in or myself was in.
• 19:01
  Brian McRae: And you know, I felt that you know my play might have hurt my father's status as a manager, and if he was gonna get fired, or I was I was in center fielder, leadoff hitter, you know, so there was a lot of writing on I thought and it was kind of maybe a selfish thought or just overanalyzing everything.
• 19:25
  Brian McRae: You know, you're still on a team and it's it's a team game, right?
• 19:28
  Casi Joy: But I was putting too much focus and pressure on what I did and how I played and how that would affect your yeah that really is a lot of things.
• 19:41
  Brian McRae: So nine so ninety-two was not a good year, and you know, we didn't play well, I didn't play well.
• 19:47
  Brian McRae: Um but I learned a lot in that year that the next two years in '93 and '94 that I was able to take from the off year and the bad year in 90 and not put so much pressure on myself and just go out there and play.
• 20:01
  Brian McRae: My teammates did a great job of not acting weird around me because my dad's manager or feel like they can't say things.
• 20:09
  Brian McRae: So I have to give a lot of credit at that time to my teammates because I was young in my major league career, you know, I wasn't a veteran.
• 20:17
  Brian McRae: I was 24, 25.
• 20:18
  Brian McRae: I was still trying to learn.
• 20:21
  Brian McRae: And if I was on a team with veteran guys that were not as accepting of everything that was going on, it could have it could have been a lot worse.
• 20:31
  Brian McRae: But they were they were good.
• 20:32
  Brian McRae: Yeah, uh, I had some of the best teammates you you could you could ask for.
• 20:34
  Brian McRae: So they they helped me.
• 20:36
  Brian McRae: And then, as I said, 93 and 94 were two of my best years of the five years that I had in Kansas City.
• 20:43
  Brian McRae: And I think the setbacks in '92 and what I learned in '92 helped me in '93 and '94 just go out and play and have a free mind, free conscience that, you know, uh I'm in the big leagues because I I earned it.
• 20:59
  Casi Joy: Yeah, that you're your own player.
• 21:01
  Casi Joy: Right.
• 21:01
  Brian McRae: And my dad is managing because he's the big league manager, and all that other stuff.
• 21:07
  Casi Joy: The two don't have to ride on each other.
• 21:08
  Brian McRae: Right.
• 21:08
  Brian McRae: And we just go out and play, he writes my name in the lineup, I go out and play, and you know, we win or lose ball games, but it has nothing to do with the father-son deal.
• 21:17
  Casi Joy: Totally.
• 21:18
  Casi Joy: So speaking of teammates, you're around guys like George Brett and Bo Jackson in your twenties.
• 21:25
  Casi Joy: Is was did they seem like celebrities at that time, or like how quickly was it just like, oh, what's up, bro?
• 21:33
  Brian McRae: I've known George since my dad came up in 73.
• 21:35
  Brian McRae: Oh, right.
• 21:36
  Brian McRae: So I so I knew him um for 20 years or almost 20 years before I got to the big league.
• 21:43
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 21:44
  Brian McRae: A lot of the guys on the eighty five World Series team with my father, I had been around them as a as a little kid.
• 21:51
  Brian McRae: So it wasn't as much an aw because I knew them.
• 21:54
  Brian McRae: Yeah, I think it's a good thing.
• 21:55
  Brian McRae: Because Bo was, you know, the two sport guy at all.
• 21:59
  Brian McRae: And Heisman Trophy.
• 22:01
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 22:01
  Brian McRae: You know, I'd never been around somebody of that stature, but I saw him when he was coming up through the minor leagues, so I knew him a little bit before I got to the big leagues.
• 22:10
  Brian McRae: And him getting hurt, not the bad bad football injury that everybody remembers with the hip, but he had separated his shoulder in 90 playing in the outfield.
• 22:23
  Brian McRae: That allowed me to get get called up.
• 22:25
  Casi Joy: To kind of go replace him at that time.
• 22:27
  Casi Joy: Right.
• 22:27
  Brian McRae: I got called up when he was um he was out and injured for a while.
• 22:31
  Brian McRae: And basically they told me, you know, Bo's gonna be out for a while, you're gonna go up.
• 22:36
  Brian McRae: Uh you may be up for two or three weeks, and then may get sent back down to the minor leagues, depending on how you play and what uh what happens with the other guys that uh that are up there.
• 22:48
  Brian McRae: And so I took it as I don't know how much time I'm gonna get, but played my best and see what see what happens.
• 22:58
  Brian McRae: And uh, you know, ten years later I was still up, and once I got called up, I never got sent down.
• 23:04
  Brian McRae: A lot of guys don't have that um uh that happen to them.
• 23:08
  Brian McRae: So I was fortunate enough that I played well enough once I came up that they kept me around, and that two weeks turned into a ten year career where I was you know fortunate enough that I took advantage of an opportunity when somebody went down to uh to play well enough to stick around.
• 23:27
  Casi Joy: Did uh did Bo Jackson ever end up coming back to baseball after that injury?
• 23:32
  Brian McRae: He came back after the bad injury, but not with the Royals.
• 23:34
  Casi Joy: Okay, okay.
• 23:35
  Brian McRae: He came back and played with the White Sox and the Angels, I think.
• 23:39
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 23:40
  Brian McRae: But he he might have missed a year or a little over a year with that that hip injury, but he was not the same, you know, he was on the verge of turning into one of the best baseball players in um you know, in in the mid mid-90s or so.
• 23:56
  Brian McRae: He had made the All-Star team in eighty-nine.
• 23:58
  Brian McRae: He was just starting to click and figure some things out uh when when he when he got injured.
• 24:03
  Brian McRae: So that was uh it was a shame for baseball, it was a shame for Kansas, Kansas City baseball, because it was unusual that a player like Bo would have signed with the Royals um and and been able to stay with the Royals because uh he turned down some other offers with other other teams to uh to end up being here with w in Kansas City and he was just starting to you know get to to that point where you know he was already good and good athlete, now he's turning into a good baseball player.
• 24:40
  Brian McRae: And it was fun to watch that transition.
• 24:44
  Casi Joy: So let's uh stick with like those the good the good old days back then.
• 24:49
  Casi Joy: Thinking about the clubhouse.
• 24:53
  Casi Joy: What is something that used to like go on in the Royals clubhouse that would never fly today?
• 25:00
  Casi Joy: Well like my I I had asked my mom that or I told her I was like going through my questions with her, and she was like, I'm pretty sure they used to smoke in the clubhouse.
• 25:10
  Brian McRae: They had ashtrays when I was a little kid working in the clubhouse.
• 25:15
  Casi Joy: Was that one of your jobs?
• 25:16
  Casi Joy: Go pick up the Yeah, I had to clean the ashes.
• 25:18
  Brian McRae: They each not not all the players smoke, but a um um a majority of them would.
• 25:24
  Brian McRae: And they had ashtrays in their lockers.
• 25:27
  Casi Joy: Oh my gosh.
• 25:28
  Brian McRae: So that was one thing that you don't see now.
• 25:30
  Brian McRae: And they were able to the clubhouse attendants were able to give out cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and dip.
• 25:40
  Casi Joy: Uh-huh.
• 25:41
  Brian McRae: They were just freely give that they would give that out.
• 25:44
  Brian McRae: Uh, and that was something that you know a lot of guys that uh chewed tobacco.
• 25:48
  Brian McRae: I my dad, I don't think he was a big I don't think I ever saw him chew.
• 25:53
  Brian McRae: He may might have chewed a little bit, but and I didn't dip or I didn't chew in in uh in my playing days, but that was something that was given out freely in the in the locker room club.
• 26:04
  Brian McRae: You just you have guys with cartons of cigarettes in their in the locker with dip and chew and all that, and there were kegs of beer in the locker room where guys after games would sit around and talk shop and and and dr and drink beer until one or two o'clock in the morning and have their wives and girlfriends come come pick 'em up.
• 26:25
  Brian McRae: Guys would just they would hang at the clubhouse for hours after the game.
• 26:29
  Casi Joy: Man, you'd think the baseball game was long enough.
• 26:31
  Brian McRae: Right.
• 26:31
  Brian McRae: And they'd still be there in half dressed in their uniforms, hanging out, and that's something that you don't see.
• 26:41
  Brian McRae: You know, guys get out of the clubhouse really quick now, but in my dad's era and and and somewhat in my my time, guys would still be in the clubhouse at one, two o'clock in the morning hanging out and talking about the game or just talking about life or just what whatever cigarette, a cigarette and a beer and in their underwear and yeah, living for the game.
• 27:03
  Brian McRae: Right, after after the game was over.
• 27:05
  Casi Joy: Man.
• 27:05
  Casi Joy: So let's let's talk about your the rest of your um baseball career.
• 27:12
  Casi Joy: Um you were drafted by Kansas City, grew up here, family's tied to the organization, and then suddenly you are a Chicago Cub.
• 27:21
  Casi Joy: What did that feel like?
• 27:23
  Casi Joy: Like, was it did it feel good to have like some change and to get a kind of away from your dad's name and C or the U.S.
• 27:30
  Brian McRae: A lot of that stuff happened because of the strike.
• 27:32
  Brian McRae: Yeah, too.
• 27:33
  Brian McRae: That um so the strike happens in '94.
• 27:37
  Brian McRae: And the Royals team that I was on, or my dad was managing at that time, we were pretty good.
• 27:42
  Brian McRae: We we had a chance to make the playoffs in '94.
• 27:44
  Brian McRae: And I I firmly believe that if the season would have gone on, we would have made the playoffs in '94.
• 27:50
  Brian McRae: After the strike, the economics of baseball changed a little bit, and what the Royals were trying to do, and they went in a different direction.
• 28:00
  Brian McRae: And my dad was fired, and they traded a lot of the good players that were on that 90-94 team, and they, you know, it was just time to move it was just time to move on.
• 28:13
  Brian McRae: I I would have loved to have stayed my whole career and played played for one team, but the strike and the economics of baseball changed of the way that Kansas City was gonna operate.
• 28:25
  Brian McRae: Mr.
• 28:26
  Brian McRae: Kaufman, Ewan Kaufman died in ninety two or ninety-three.
• 28:30
  Brian McRae: There was a trust fund that had taken over the Royals, so they weren't gonna spend like they had spent before.
• 28:36
  Brian McRae: We had one of the highest payrolls in baseball the last two years.
• 28:40
  Brian McRae: I was in Kansas City in '93 and '94.
• 28:42
  Casi Joy: Oh, okay.
• 28:43
  Brian McRae: We'd signed a bunch of free agents.
• 28:45
  Brian McRae: Uh Mr.
• 28:46
  Brian McRae: Kaufman was very aggressive with doing things like that because he wanted to win one more time before he passed.
• 28:53
  Brian McRae: And so once things changed and they decided what direction the team was going to go on, uh then, you know, a lot of us had to move on.
• 29:04
  Brian McRae: And getting traded to Chicago was I never played in the National League.
• 29:08
  Brian McRae: I hadn't spent much time in Chicago other than being a player and going in there and playing against the White Sox.
• 29:13
  Brian McRae: So I didn't know a lot.
• 29:14
  Brian McRae: I just knew they played at Wrigley Field, they played a lot of day games, uh, good fan base, and I was ready.
• 29:22
  Brian McRae: You know, five years in Kansas City, the Royals were not going in a direction that I thought my career needed to go in.
• 29:30
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 29:31
  Brian McRae: And going to Chicago was was great.
• 29:33
  Brian McRae: I I I I enjoyed it.
• 29:35
  Brian McRae: Um playing on playing day games, playing on WGN, getting seen every day.
• 29:40
  Brian McRae: Um, you know, you're in the shadows here a little bit, good and bad here in Kansas City.
• 29:45
  Brian McRae: You know, you don't get the media attention that you would in a major market.
• 29:53
  Brian McRae: So if you play well, it's it's great.
• 29:56
  Brian McRae: If you play bad, it's it's not.
• 29:57
  Brian McRae: So um having my first five years of my career and learning a lot here in Kansas City helped me to play in Chicago and deal with the media and the scrutiny and and those types of things.
• 30:08
  Brian McRae: I don't think as a young player at 22, I would have been able to play in Chicago.
• 30:13
  Brian McRae: But at 27, 28, uh, it it was perfect, it was perfectly fit, and and uh, and I I loved the three years I played there in Chicago, got a lot of great friends that I still uh hang out with and and talk to today.
• 30:27
  Brian McRae: And uh the National League style of ball fit my fit my game at that time.
• 30:32
  Brian McRae: And you know, I I kind of hit the ground running there um and made a name for myself with the Cubs.
• 30:37
  Brian McRae: And yeah, you know, that that was uh that was a fun period.
• 30:40
  Brian McRae: That was a fun, fun period to uh uh my friends and family to get be able to come to Chicago and enjoy that with me and get from under the pressure of can Kansas City a little bit and my dad and the legacy and and all and all those things.
• 30:55
  Brian McRae: So there's there's the trade was a shock at first because I never wanted to leave.
• 31:01
  Brian McRae: I'd been 10 years in the organization from the minor leagues to the big leagues.
• 31:04
  Brian McRae: But once I got to Chicago, I was like, okay, this is where I need to be.
• 31:07
  Casi Joy: Yeah, what a fresh little start.
• 31:08
  Casi Joy: Exactly.
• 31:08
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 31:09
  Casi Joy: Were you a fan of um the deep dish pizza out there?
• 31:13
  Brian McRae: No, I'm I'm still I was a fan of all the Italian restaurants and the steak joints.
• 31:18
  Brian McRae: Okay.
• 31:18
  Brian McRae: But I was not I tried it, but I'm not a deep dish.
• 31:21
  Casi Joy: Some people aren't they're like, it's a casserole, it's not pizza.
• 31:24
  Casi Joy: Right.
• 31:24
  Brian McRae: It's it is more like a casserole, but I I love the steakhouses.
• 31:27
  Brian McRae: I love the Italian restaurants there, and a lot of the guys that ran those places were Cubs season ticket holders.
• 31:34
  Brian McRae: Oh, yeah.
• 31:34
  Brian McRae: So I got to meet I got to meet a lot of those uh a lot of those guys and and eat eat at some of the best restaurants and playing day games too, you're eating at normal hours.
• 31:43
  Casi Joy: Hey, that's nice.
• 31:44
  Brian McRae: So that was that was good.
• 31:45
  Brian McRae: So I got I got to enjoy the uh the city more and the restaurants and all that because we're done five or six o'clock every day.
• 31:53
  Casi Joy: So you're just like working a normal.
• 31:54
  Brian McRae: Right, it was like a nine to five, and you ate at a decent hour instead of trying to eat at midnight, one o'clock in the morning all the time.
• 31:59
  Casi Joy: Well, yeah.
• 32:00
  Brian McRae: So all those things fit locker room for hours.
• 32:02
  Brian McRae: So all those things fit with me at that stage in my career.
• 32:06
  Brian McRae: I was a morning person, we played day games.
• 32:08
  Brian McRae: Um, I wanted to I had a good routine of what you do after the game, get get get some food, go home.
• 32:17
  Brian McRae: You know, it it is it it forced you to have a better schedule because you played day games, you had to set time constraints and things like that.
• 32:27
  Brian McRae: So that that was all good.
• 32:28
  Brian McRae: My friends would come and at 10 o'clock, I was like, I'm going home.
• 32:33
  Brian McRae: You guys can go hang out and have fun in Chicago, but you've had me from six o'clock to ten o'clock.
• 32:38
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 32:38
  Brian McRae: We had four hours to hang out, and I got to work tomorrow.
• 32:40
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 32:40
  Brian McRae: You guys can go have fun.
• 32:42
  Casi Joy: I didn't realize the schedules were that different, like that there would be just day games out there at that time.
• 32:46
  Brian McRae: Yeah, so the Cubs can only play 19 night games while I was there.
• 32:51
  Casi Joy: Oh.
• 32:52
  Brian McRae: The city ordinance from where they are there in a residential neighborhood.
• 32:55
  Casi Joy: Oh.
• 32:56
  Brian McRae: They didn't have lights until 1988 or 89.
• 32:59
  Casi Joy: Oh my gosh.
• 33:00
  Brian McRae: So we we play a lot of day games, so you just have to make sure that you Or the neighbors complain too.
• 33:05
  Brian McRae: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:06
  Brian McRae: So they they didn't let um and they they still don't let the Cubs play a lot of night games.
• 33:10
  Casi Joy: Really?
• 33:12
  Brian McRae: So it's it's a special quirk about that area of Chicago where they are only allowed to play X amount of uh night games to keep the neighborhood the way it the way the neighbors want it.
• 33:24
  Casi Joy: Oh my gosh.
• 33:25
  Casi Joy: The the HOA just the HOA of Wrigley Field.
• 33:29
  Casi Joy: Nope, can't play, can't play.
• 33:31
  Brian McRae: You know, they they have to get a special exception to play night games for the playoffs and if they get in the World Series and and things like that.
• 33:37
  Casi Joy: Wow.
• 33:38
  Casi Joy: It's like but mom, it's the World Series.
• 33:40
  Casi Joy: Let us play a little later.
• 33:43
  Brian McRae: But it's it's a it's a cool little neighborhood.
• 33:46
  Brian McRae: Six to seven o'clock after a day game's over, during like on a Tuesday or a Wednesday when they play day games, it gets back to be a nice, peaceful little neighborhood.
• 33:56
  Casi Joy: Wow.
• 33:56
  Casi Joy: That's wild.
• 33:58
  Casi Joy: So after Chicago, you played for the New York Mets, Colorado Rockies, and the Toronto Blue Jays.
• 34:05
  Casi Joy: Did you have a favorite city that you played in?
• 34:08
  Brian McRae: I was only in Colorado and Toronto for a short period of time.
• 34:12
  Brian McRae: New York was I was almost three years in New York.
• 34:15
  Brian McRae: Okay.
• 34:15
  Brian McRae: And I lived in I lived in Manhattan on the Upper East Side.
• 34:18
  Brian McRae: So I'm making that progression from Kansas City, Chicago to New York.
• 34:23
  Casi Joy: Like Upper East Side.
• 34:24
  Brian McRae: So I stayed on the Upper East Side.
• 34:26
  Casi Joy: Gossip Girl territory.
• 34:28
  Brian McRae: I was like, I'm gonna I'm I'm only gonna be in New York probably once in my life.
• 34:31
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 34:31
  Brian McRae: And I'm only gonna be making decent money like this probably once in my life.
• 34:35
  Brian McRae: So I might as well stay in Manhattan, stay on the Upper East Side and check out what New York has to offer.
• 34:41
  Casi Joy: Did you love that so much?
• 34:42
  Casi Joy: I loved it.
• 34:43
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 34:43
  Brian McRae: I I enjoyed uh I enjoyed living in New York.
• 34:46
  Brian McRae: The vibe a little different from a little quicker than Kansas City.
• 34:49
  Brian McRae: We were growing up in Kansas City, but um, that it that was it was uh the trade from Chicago to New York was during this season, which was different from when I got traded from the Royals to to the Cubs so I had to catch a team on the fly and learn learn everything uh a little bit different there for the last two months, two and a half months of the season.
• 35:12
  Brian McRae: Uh but I I enjoyed living in New York, playing in New York.
• 35:16
  Brian McRae: It's a different the fans are different, different expectations.
• 35:19
  Brian McRae: Oh, yeah.
• 35:20
  Brian McRae: You have two teams there, like in Chicago, uh, the Mets and the Yankees.
• 35:25
  Brian McRae: The Yankees are the celebrated team.
• 35:27
  Brian McRae: The Mets were not.
• 35:28
  Brian McRae: The Mets had not played well.
• 35:30
  Brian McRae: They won a World Series in '86.
• 35:32
  Brian McRae: So they hadn't had much success.
• 35:35
  Brian McRae: This was 97, and they're still trying to get out of the shadows of the Yankees.
• 35:40
  Brian McRae: They're building a dynasty, they're winning World Series every year.
• 35:42
  Brian McRae: So we were second fiddle in uh in in New York, but by the time I left there, the the team was really good.
• 35:52
  Brian McRae: 98, 99.
• 35:54
  Brian McRae: We all we almost made the playoffs to 98, missed by one game.
• 35:58
  Brian McRae: 99, I got traded to the Rockies and the Blue Jays, but the team made it to the the playoffs, so I got it.
• 36:06
  Brian McRae: I still got a share of the the playoff money because I was there most of the year.
• 36:09
  Brian McRae: Um but learning what I learned in Kansas City and Chicago prepared me for the craziness of of New York.
• 36:18
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 36:19
  Brian McRae: You know, just uh the hustle and the bustle and the traffic, and you know, you had seven papers covering the team and the media attention and talk shows.
• 36:29
  Casi Joy: I mean, what a good trajectory of like Kansas City.
• 36:32
  Casi Joy: It's like it's a city and then Chicago.
• 36:34
  Casi Joy: It's more of a city and then New York.
• 36:36
  Brian McRae: Like, so there's a good little I think my career would not been what it was if it would if I would have started in Chicago or started in New York.
• 36:45
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 36:45
  Casi Joy: You're thrown in the city.
• 36:46
  Brian McRae: So those places would have swallowed me up as tw at twenty-two.
• 36:49
  Brian McRae: Uh-huh.
• 36:49
  Brian McRae: And I saw it a lot with a lot of younger guys.
• 36:52
  Brian McRae: They needed to get out of Chicago or New York to thrive.
• 36:55
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 36:56
  Brian McRae: It's not a good place for a young a young kid to try to uh to try to grow up and play major league baseball your first few years.
• 37:03
  Brian McRae: Uh guys have good careers, but they don't start it or end it, or they don't start it a lot of times in uh in Chicago or uh or New York.
• 37:13
  Brian McRae: They ended there.
• 37:14
  Brian McRae: But uh you know the the Yankees were as I said, they were they were the team of New York when we were there.
• 37:20
  Brian McRae: We started to make some inroads uh those three years I was there.
• 37:24
  Brian McRae: We were able to beat the Yankees in a few series and and and and then they ended up playing the Yankees at the year after I was gone in the um 2000 World Series.
• 37:33
  Brian McRae: But uh, you know, I I enjoyed living living there.
• 37:37
  Brian McRae: When I got traded to Colorado, I was only there for ten days.
• 37:39
  Brian McRae: Oh and I didn't ever play in Denver.
• 37:42
  Casi Joy: Okay.
• 37:43
  Brian McRae: I caught them on the road, got traded to the Blue Jays on on the road.
• 37:47
  Casi Joy: What'd you think of Canada?
• 37:48
  Brian McRae: I like Canada.
• 37:49
  Brian McRae: I love Canada.
• 37:49
  Brian McRae: I I I enjoy, I mean, I spent I've probably been in more provinces in Canada than most Canadians.
• 37:56
  Casi Joy: Really?
• 37:56
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 37:57
  Casi Joy: Wow.
• 37:57
  Brian McRae: Uh and I stayed in the hotel that's connected to the stadium in Toronto.
• 38:03
  Brian McRae: And the skydome there, there's a there's a hotel out in the center field.
• 38:07
  Brian McRae: And I was only there for two months with with the Blue Jays.
• 38:10
  Brian McRae: So I I stayed right there at the at the hotel, and it took me ten minutes to get from my room to my my locker.
• 38:16
  Brian McRae: And Toronto's a beautiful city.
• 38:18
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 38:18
  Brian McRae: It was right.
• 38:18
  Brian McRae: You know, I stayed downtown, walked around everywhere, and you know, the people were i I've I call Toronto a clean New York city.
• 38:25
  Brian McRae: And I, you know, Canadians are good good people, and I've always I have nothing nothing bad to say about it anything in in Toronto.
• 38:33
  Brian McRae: Uh, you know, I I I still try to get back there and uh and enjoy that.
• 38:37
  Brian McRae: That's a great city to play in.
• 38:38
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 38:38
  Casi Joy: I feel some weird connection to the Blue Jays because um I I had been singing the national anthem for the Royals like off and on, like, you know, one or two games a season since I was like 14 years old.
• 38:51
  Casi Joy: And then um some years ago, somehow it got brought up like, does she know the Canadian anthem?
• 38:57
  Casi Joy: And so then I kind of became the anthem singer anytime the Royals would play the Blue Jays, so then I would get to sing both.
• 39:03
  Casi Joy: And I love singing their anthem.
• 39:05
  Casi Joy: And uh yeah, beautiful country, good people.
• 39:08
  Brian McRae: Best uh we almost made the playoffs there in uh in in 99 um with the Blue Jays, and then for about seven or eight years after I retired, I got invited back to do Blue Jays events and camps and clinics, and that's how come I was all over all over Canada doing doing all that.
• 39:27
  Brian McRae: Up up until COVID, I would go back to Canada three or four times a year, and I even coached in um in one of the leagues, uh clock college summer leagues in Vic Victoria, British Columbia, which is a beautiful area area there right outside of Vancouver.
• 39:42
  Brian McRae: So yeah, I have a strong connection to Toronto.
• 39:44
  Brian McRae: Even though I only played there about two months, uh it got me ten to twelve years of doing things.
• 39:52
  Casi Joy: They're good people.
• 39:53
  Brian McRae: I like to I like to uh drink the beer and uh pour gravy on everything.
• 39:57
  Brian McRae: Yeah, the uh poop.
• 39:59
  Brian McRae: So yeah, yeah, I I fit in with the Canadians and they like me, so I got invited to do a lot of stuff there.
• 40:04
  Casi Joy: I love that.
• 40:04
  Casi Joy: So yeah, you just mentioned coaching.
• 40:06
  Casi Joy: It seems like you've coached like all over the place.
• 40:10
  Casi Joy: So let's um first, you're you do a ton with helping the youth, and you've done a lot of work with um the KC Sluggers, right?
• 40:20
  Casi Joy: Talk a little bit about what you've done with them.
• 40:23
  Brian McRae: Well, once I got done playing, I did broadcasting for a while and trying to figure out what what I wanted to do afterwards and if I wanted to go back to school at some point, because even though Were you gonna go back and play football?
• 40:37
  Brian McRae: I was not gonna go back and play football at that point.
• 40:39
  Brian McRae: But I I I'd always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to go back go back to school because if I wanted to be a full-time coach at the college level, I needed to get a degree.
• 40:49
  Casi Joy: Oh, right, right.
• 40:50
  Brian McRae: And I took some classes in '94 when we were on strike.
• 40:55
  Brian McRae: I took some broadcasting classes at KU.
• 40:58
  Brian McRae: So I'd started that down that road, taking a a semester or two.
• 41:03
  Brian McRae: And after I got out of broadcasting, um, a couple friends of mine were running the KC Sluggers organization, they were working there, and they had they w they coached at Johnson County Community College.
• 41:16
  Brian McRae: And I think uh the baseball team went to the World Series there.
• 41:19
  Brian McRae: So they had to miss some summer ball to be with Johnson County, and they asked that if I've if I wanted to help out and coach.
• 41:27
  Brian McRae: And this was my first go at it at coaching, so I didn't know if I wanted to do it or not, but I helped out and I liked it, and I got more wrapped in in into it, and I started doing that and seeing that you know I could help some kids and push them along their way to to on their college journey if they wanted to keep playing baseball or guide them into you know things that um that that that they wanted to do later later in life, that uh that I was kind of good at good at that, uh good at teaching, good at coaching.
• 41:58
  Brian McRae: And so that got me uh that got me into that on the nonprofit side because I like being able to give, but not have to charge those kids a ton with a travel ball.
• 42:12
  Brian McRae: And and so we were able to raise money with donations and and help kids out that way.
• 42:16
  Brian McRae: I just I didn't feel comfortable charging what is being charged to play a game that you know families are struggling enough as it is.
• 42:28
  Brian McRae: Yeah, okay.
• 42:28
  Brian McRae: And you gotta pay for college, but you you shouldn't be paying a college tuition to try to play summer and fall ball.
• 42:34
  Casi Joy: How do you feel about all of these traveling sports or anything?
• 42:38
  Casi Joy: It's crazy, it's it's out of here.
• 42:39
  Casi Joy: It is running families.
• 42:41
  Brian McRae: Yes.
• 42:41
  Brian McRae: I mean people are taking out second mortgages so they can travel around and that's not that's not the way it should be.
• 42:47
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 42:47
  Brian McRae: And that's not that's why I got out of it, too, because I saw what it was becoming, and I didn't want to be a part of that machine.
• 42:55
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 42:55
  Brian McRae: It's I remember paying 50 bucks for fees to play Legion ball.
• 43:02
  Casi Joy: Mm-hmm.
• 43:03
  Brian McRae: And you know, we played in local tournaments and we did that, and and people saw us.
• 43:08
  Brian McRae: We had kids play college, I got to play Pro Ball, you know.
• 43:12
  Brian McRae: You don't need to travel all over the country, but everybody's telling you that if you don't do this, your kid won't get seen.
• 43:18
  Casi Joy: And you know, so I I I like parents are gone all weekend and it's crazy.
• 43:24
  Brian McRae: I I liked doing it for a while, and then towards the end, I didn't like what it became.
• 43:29
  Brian McRae: Um so I said, I'm gonna go back to school, coaching college, and I got an opportunity at Park University.
• 43:36
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 43:37
  Brian McRae: So I started uh taking night classes there at first.
• 43:40
  Casi Joy: Which I'm also a park pirate, yard.
• 43:43
  Brian McRae: And I had my degree in uh social psychology from uh from Park University.
• 43:48
  Brian McRae: So I co coached at Park for five years, coached at Mizzou uh for one year in two thousand seventeen.
• 43:53
  Brian McRae: So I was taking classes at Mizzou and at Park at the same time.
• 43:57
  Brian McRae: Park online, Mizzou, I was going uh Um going in class.
• 44:01
  Brian McRae: So at at 48 or 49, going to class with uh regular college.
• 44:07
  Brian McRae: That was kind of that was kind of odd.
• 44:09
  Brian McRae: But uh but I, you know, it was what I wanted to do to see if I wanted to coach at the collegiate level, be a full-time coach.
• 44:16
  Brian McRae: I needed to do that, and I wanted to get that experience and at Mizzou, and I did that at the D1 level and um got that done and got my degree and was coaching some summer ball.
• 44:28
  Brian McRae: So I've coached high school, summer ball, collegiate summer ball, and then at the collegiate level, and then once COVID hit, that everything pretty much put a halt to it.
• 44:37
  Brian McRae: My daughter was getting into high school, wanted to make sure her transition to high school was uh was as smooth as it can go with all the uncertainty that everybody had going on.
• 44:48
  Brian McRae: And I got back into coaching last summer once my daughter, she's at K-State now, she's a sophomore at K-State.
• 44:56
  Brian McRae: So once she got into college, I started coaching again, and there's a summer league here called the Ban Johnson Collegiate Summer League, and it's it's local, no travel.
• 45:07
  Brian McRae: You play doubleheaders on Tuesdays and Wednesday nights, and it's all mostly all the local, small college kids here in the Kansas City area.
• 45:15
  Brian McRae: Okay.
• 45:16
  Brian McRae: So I've gotten back into it on a small scale doing that, and then do some private lessons and uh oh cool and things of that nature.
• 45:24
  Brian McRae: But I I always thought that I was gonna either be a broadcaster or a coach, more so than than than than playing.
• 45:34
  Brian McRae: You know, that it just happened to that just happened to spark up and I and I would got it.
• 45:38
  Casi Joy: Turns out you can do it all.
• 45:39
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 45:40
  Brian McRae: Um but I really enjoy being able to help others because a lot of people help me.
• 45:46
  Brian McRae: Being able to coach, give back, uh, mentor, things of that, that, that nature, go through my good, bad, ugly experiences in life and try to help out, you know, some of the kids that I coach, because I tell them I was like, you're not probably gonna be a professional baseball player, but you're gonna be a professional mom, dad, you know, coach, you're uh uh you know, brothers.
• 46:12
  Casi Joy: Stuff that coaches teach people, it can be applied to right.
• 46:15
  Brian McRae: You're gonna you're gonna be you're gonna have family.
• 46:16
  Brian McRae: You're gonna need to, you know, so maybe some of the things that I did wrong and right, I can help you guys out so you know you make some better choices in certain situations.
• 46:26
  Brian McRae: You know, yeah.
• 46:27
  Brian McRae: Some of my former players call me still.
• 46:29
  Brian McRae: You know, I get wedding invitations and and you know, things like that.
• 46:33
  Brian McRae: So those things make me feel good.
• 46:35
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 46:35
  Brian McRae: That that almost makes me feel as good as what I did when I was when I was playing, reaching, you know, reaching the big leagues.
• 46:42
  Brian McRae: Uh-huh.
• 46:43
  Brian McRae: Because I know that if I touch them enough in what we went through that they're gonna call me, ask for advice, uh, stop by and see me when they come into town.
• 46:55
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 46:55
  Casi Joy: And it's probably advice that's not about the field.
• 46:57
  Casi Joy: It's you know wedding invitations.
• 47:00
  Brian McRae: You know, things things like that.
• 47:01
  Brian McRae: And you if if I see their parents, you know, the parents will thank me.
• 47:04
  Brian McRae: So those things make you feel good that you're able to to give back and to help.
• 47:09
  Brian McRae: Mm-hmm.
• 47:09
  Brian McRae: Because there are a lot of people that uh went out of their way to help me drive me to practice and you know, think things of that name.
• 47:17
  Brian McRae: Little things, but in the grand scheme of things, those little things added up to me being able to play in the big leagues and them being able to give back.
• 47:27
  Casi Joy: Yeah, I mean, we you're like the sixth, fifth or sixth athlete that like I've interviewed now, and I I feel like every single one has brought up uh a coach that just changed their life and and not a college coach.
• 47:43
  Casi Joy: Like it's you know, way back, or um just like Daron Cherry had was just mentioning um a janitor from his school that opened up the gym for them to, you know, it's just these little things that like coaches and adults and mentors in kids' lives that aren't trying to change lives, but they just do and like have such a lasting impact on these kids.
• 48:05
  Brian McRae: The biggest thing I found out about coaching, and I think it's a little bit of teaching as well, is your students or the kids that you coach, they want to know that you care.
• 48:16
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 48:17
  Brian McRae: And they want to know that you have their best interest in mind.
• 48:22
  Brian McRae: You can be hard on them and you can yell and scream at times and you discipline them, but if they know that you care and you want them to do well, and you're not just in it for your own whatever your own personality is hard on you because I know what you can do.
• 48:37
  Brian McRae: I'm not in it to win trophies or wing rings or it's like it's like I want you guys to be better than you think you can be and go out there and change the world, do some do some great things.
• 48:47
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Brian McRae: If the kids know that, then they'll buy in and they'll do they'll do whatever you ask.
• 48:52
  Casi Joy: Mm-hmm.
• 48:53
  Casi Joy: So what if so you're you've coached like thousands of young players coming through baseball.
• 48:59
  Casi Joy: What is, besides what we talked about with traveling, um, what's the biggest mistake you think parents make when they realize that they have like a really talented athlete?
• 49:09
  Brian McRae: Biggest mistake I think they make is trying to push them too soon to be a one sport person.
• 49:19
  Casi Joy: Oh interesting.
• 49:21
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 49:23
  Brian McRae: I learned a lot by not being a good basketball player or soccer player.
• 49:29
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 49:30
  Brian McRae: Number one, it gave me time to rest my body from baseball or football.
• 49:35
  Brian McRae: And it gave me some downtime, and you you just learn a new skill set.
• 49:40
  Brian McRae: You don't have to be good at everything, especially at a young age.
• 49:43
  Brian McRae: I just I learned how to use my feet better because I play soccer.
• 49:47
  Brian McRae: You can't use because everything in America that we do, we use our hands.
• 49:51
  Brian McRae: And you get lazy sometimes because your hands try to do the work.
• 49:55
  Brian McRae: In soccer, your feet gotta have to do the work.
• 49:58
  Brian McRae: So I think I learned a lot soccer-wise, even though I wasn't good at soccer, but by playing it, I learned how to move my feet.
• 50:07
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 50:07
  Brian McRae: And that helped me.
• 50:08
  Brian McRae: And playing basketball, I wasn't good at basketball.
• 50:11
  Brian McRae: But playing basketball taught me some things that helped me be more athletic in playing baseball.
• 50:19
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 50:19
  Brian McRae: That's so But I think they pigeonhole kids into you're a baseball player.
• 50:24
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 50:24
  Brian McRae: Twelve months out of the year.
• 50:25
  Brian McRae: You're a football player.
• 50:27
  Casi Joy: And we gotta travel.
• 50:28
  Casi Joy: Right.
• 50:28
  Brian McRae: You gotta travel, you gotta play fallball, you gotta do you don't take winter ball, we play time.
• 50:32
  Brian McRae: You don't take time off.
• 50:33
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 50:34
  Brian McRae: And you don't allow their body to heal or just allow them to do something.
• 50:37
  Casi Joy: And to do different movements in different sports.
• 50:39
  Casi Joy: Yeah, that's such a good thing.
• 50:40
  Casi Joy: But you don't have to be good at it.
• 50:41
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 50:41
  Brian McRae: You can do something.
• 50:42
  Casi Joy: Just do something.
• 50:43
  Brian McRae: Just to do something.
• 50:44
  Brian McRae: You don't have to excel at maybe basketball's your favorite favorite sport, your best sport, fine.
• 50:48
  Brian McRae: But you can still do something else.
• 50:50
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 50:51
  Casi Joy: But maybe for fun, do track too, and you can see your friends.
• 50:53
  Casi Joy: Whatever.
• 50:54
  Brian McRae: Just do some things.
• 50:55
  Brian McRae: And I and I felt like playing those other sports up until you got into high school, then you can you know just pick your sport.
• 51:03
  Brian McRae: But playing those other sports allowed me to be more athletic.
• 51:07
  Brian McRae: It taught me how to be more athletic.
• 51:08
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 51:09
  Brian McRae: And it also taught me that it's okay not to be good at everything.
• 51:14
  Casi Joy: I had a hard time with that growing up.
• 51:15
  Casi Joy: Anytime, like I I would try, I would play like every sport, and like if I got second in hurdles, I was like, then I'm never doing hurdles again.
• 51:22
  Brian McRae: I'm done.
• 51:23
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 51:23
  Casi Joy: I'm doing jumping now.
• 51:24
  Casi Joy: And yeah.
• 51:25
  Brian McRae: But you know, in life, you're not gonna be good at everything.
• 51:28
  Casi Joy: Yeah, that is true.
• 51:29
  Brian McRae: You're gonna fail a lot.
• 51:30
  Casi Joy: Yep.
• 51:31
  Brian McRae: So the the sooner you can learn how to fail and not let it beat you up and demoralize you, and then try to get better at something else, then I think I I think those lessons are all are all good.
• 51:47
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 51:47
  Brian McRae: They everybody gets a trophy, all those things now, like you don't you don't fail, everybody gets the same plan.
• 51:54
  Brian McRae: No, it's like you're not all treated the same.
• 51:57
  Casi Joy: Yeah, we're not all on the same level playing field out here.
• 52:01
  Brian McRae: In a perfect world, you are, but we don't live in a perfect world.
• 52:04
  Brian McRae: And you know, if you produce, you know, you you get you get treated a little bit different.
• 52:11
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 52:11
  Brian McRae: You know, but learn how to fail and then get back back there.
• 52:15
  Brian McRae: I think that that teaches you a little bit more of like tenacity.
• 52:19
  Brian McRae: I don't think we have a lot of kids that can fail and come back from that.
• 52:26
  Casi Joy: Yeah, we're not dusting ourselves off as well as we used to.
• 52:29
  Brian McRae: Like there's kids that are good at everything, and once they hit a roadblock, they don't know how to get themselves back on track.
• 52:38
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 52:38
  Brian McRae: And that that's what I saw a lot of.
• 52:40
  Brian McRae: So mentally, I tried to work with a lot of the guys of you know, you have a lot of the physical tools, but mentally, are you able to have a bad week and not let that turn into a bad month?
• 52:55
  Casi Joy: Wow, are you taking life coaching clients?
• 52:58
  Brian McRae: Some of my friends think I do that.
• 53:00
  Brian McRae: How long do you have?
• 53:01
  Casi Joy: I have some things to spill.
• 53:02
  Casi Joy: I have a lot to get off my chest.
• 53:06
  Brian McRae: So I felt like I was doing a lot of that all along with my coaching.
• 53:10
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 53:11
  Casi Joy: And well, that's a lot of what coaches are.
• 53:13
  Casi Joy: They become like, you know, life coaches for these kids.
• 53:17
  Brian McRae: It was less the physical, especially when you get up to the high school and college, it was less the physical things that we were talking about and mechanics.
• 53:24
  Brian McRae: It was more mentally, how are you, you know, what's going on outside of this?
• 53:30
  Casi Joy: Like, you seem distracted today on the field.
• 53:33
  Casi Joy: Schoolwork.
• 53:34
  Brian McRae: Yeah, what's going on here?
• 53:35
  Brian McRae: Everything good with your parents, your family good, you know, it's like you're having car issues, you're having this, like all the all these things going on, and you find out that a lot of those things are taking away from what they're able to do in the classroom.
• 53:50
  Brian McRae: Being able to focus, get them to get them to focus at least at least for that three or four hours, like be able to separate what's going on outside, come inside, shut that down.
• 54:03
  Brian McRae: Those problems are still gonna be there, things that need to be resolved gonna be there.
• 54:07
  Brian McRae: But you get to take a break from it.
• 54:09
  Brian McRae: But take a break from it and give your mind a chance.
• 54:11
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 54:12
  Casi Joy: Man, I feel better.
• 54:14
  Casi Joy: We're not even talking about me, but I feel I feel better.
• 54:18
  Casi Joy: I feel like a weight's been lifted.
• 54:20
  Casi Joy: So what's next for you?
• 54:23
  Casi Joy: Because you've done so much throughout your career from charity work to helping shape the youth, and it doesn't seem like you're the kind to truly just retire and chill.
• 54:36
  Casi Joy: So what's next?
• 54:38
  Brian McRae: Well, in retirement for me, I've been busy.
• 54:41
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 54:41
  Brian McRae: Because there's a lot of um like charity golf events and and and people want you to uh come out and help certain causes and and things like that.
• 54:51
  Brian McRae: So I've done done a lot of that and just try to find my people to to help and support and in whatever endeavors they're they're doing.
• 55:02
  Brian McRae: And uh and I like to travel.
• 55:05
  Brian McRae: So this allows me to, you know, doing some of these events allows me me to travel, see some old friends, see some old teammates, check out some areas of the country that I've never seen before or not spent much time in.
• 55:20
  Brian McRae: Um so those are all things that I I like doing and um just getting my daughter through college, you know.
• 55:31
  Casi Joy: But she's studying.
• 55:32
  Brian McRae: She doesn't know yet.
• 55:33
  Brian McRae: Um, hadn't declared a a major, but uh you know, she is uh dyslexic.
• 55:40
  Brian McRae: So learning how her brain works.
• 55:43
  Brian McRae: Yep, just gotta find a way to do it differently.
• 55:45
  Brian McRae: Um and now being able to, once she's in college, she's not a little kid anymore, and to let her do her do her thing and watch watch that, you know.
• 56:00
  Brian McRae: So I get get down and try to see her probably more than she wants me to go go and see her in Manhattan.
• 56:08
  Brian McRae: Um, but um, you know, d my parents are getting older, they're 81 and 82, they're in Florida.
• 56:15
  Brian McRae: Get to see them more.
• 56:17
  Brian McRae: I need to get, you know, I want to get down and spend more time with them.
• 56:21
  Brian McRae: My sister has three kids, and she's 45 minutes from my parents, but I can't expect her to do everything.
• 56:29
  Brian McRae: She teaches, and she's got three kids with all their activities.
• 56:32
  Brian McRae: So, you know, my nieces and nephews, they're college, or some of them are two in high school, a couple in college, one's out of college.
• 56:42
  Brian McRae: So trying to, you know, see their activities and do more family, um, family things, try to get this together.
• 56:51
  Brian McRae: You know, that those are my my focuses is trying to, you know, um just travel but not just fun travel, travel some purposes, travel with purpose, right?
• 57:03
  Casi Joy: Right.
• 57:04
  Brian McRae: And maybe get my nieces and nephews to come along with me on some on some trips now that they're getting old enough to wanna to want to do some of those things and and hang out with Uncle Brian.
• 57:15
  Casi Joy: Yeah, yeah, that's so special.
• 57:17
  Casi Joy: Well, thank you so much for this conversation and just kind of shining your light on us, man.
• 57:26
  Casi Joy: I feel like you're a therapist, life coach, mentor.
• 57:30
  Casi Joy: I mean, can we hang out?
• 57:32
  Casi Joy: Can I come on one of these trips?
• 57:37
  Brian McRae: But it it's it's it's good.
• 57:38
  Brian McRae: I love doing these things too, because there are times where I'll go, because I'm I'm a kind of an introverted person at times.
• 57:46
  Brian McRae: Yeah.
• 57:47
  Brian McRae: So there's times where I'll go and just shut down for a while after a busy week or two of going to golf tournaments, doing some coaches, and I'll sit in the house and do nothing for a while, and that's that's not good.
• 58:00
  Brian McRae: So this these things allow me to get out and whatever I need to get out to.
• 58:05
  Brian McRae: I can you know, so so this helps.
• 58:08
  Brian McRae: Um I did a podcast um a couple years ago, did like six or seven egg episodes of podcasts, and people have asked me if you know to maybe get more involved in in in some of those things, and uh I may get back into broadcasting, but uh but this gets me out of my shell where when I get in that mood where I don't feel like getting out or talking or hanging out with people, doing things like this is much needed for me as well.
• 58:37
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 58:37
  Casi Joy: Well, very cool.
• 58:38
  Brian McRae: Well, do you have anything that you would like to promote to the people, your book that you need to write, or um no, but i I have some friends that are battling cancer, and um my mom and dad have both gone through bouts of cancer, and and we probably all of us know somebody's been touched.
• 58:56
  Brian McRae: Absolutely.
• 58:56
  Brian McRae: You know, so just uh you know, what what I'm learning now getting older is uh you know, some of your friends that you have not reached out to in a while, they may be going through things that uh they don't want to talk about or they feel uncomfortable about, but make sure you reach out if you haven't.
• 59:17
  Brian McRae: If you think about your buddy that you haven't talked to in a while or something, it's like I need to talk to him.
• 59:21
  Brian McRae: See how don't say I need to go ahead and go ahead and do it.
• 59:25
  Casi Joy: Yeah.
• 59:25
  Brian McRae: Uh I've I've found that that's you know, as we get older, that uh thinking about it and doing it are two totally different things, and it's easier to communicate now than ever.
• 59:38
  Brian McRae: Yep.
• 59:38
  Brian McRae: So you have no excuses.
• 59:40
  Brian McRae: So you know, reach reach out to some of those people and uh you know, pray for the ones that need some help and and hopefully uh you know the people that we know that uh are going through cancer treatments and being diagnosed with things that uh you know they caught them soon enough because I've lost too many friends and don't want to lose young ones again.
• 1:00:02
  Brian McRae: Uh so just uh you know pray for those people and uh you know have empathy for what people are going through.
• 1:00:10
  Casi Joy: Yeah, totally.
• 1:00:11
  Casi Joy: Man, sending us out with some words of wisdom.
• 1:00:14
  Casi Joy: I would expect nothing less after this conversation.
• 1:00:17
  Casi Joy: Well, thank you so much, Brian McCrae, for uh hanging out with us on Custom Conversations.
• 1:00:24
  Brian McRae: Thank you.
• 1:00:24
  Brian McRae: I appreciate it, and thank you for having me.
• 1:00:26
  Casi Joy: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:00:27
  Casi Joy: Thank you guys for tuning in again to Custom Conversations.
• 1:00:31
  Casi Joy: Be sure to like, share, subscribe, star, review, rate us, everything.
• 1:00:35
  Casi Joy: There's so many options, and we want you to do all of them.
• 1:00:38
  Casi Joy: Thank you guys so much for tuning in.
• 1:00:40
  Casi Joy: Well, I feel better after my therapy session.