When they say Brian McRae plays lights out, it’s no exaggeration.
In Pittsburgh last year, after something angered him that was so important he can’t remember it now, the Cubs’ center-fielder used a bat to smash eight overhead light fixtures in the clubhouse.
“I paid for it,” he says. “And for the $2,000 it cost me it was worth it. I’ve always been like that, always needed to get frustrations out.”
To understand McRae’s character, however, you need to delve farther than the temper. Such as his reaction to manager Jim Riggleman’s edict that he never act that destructively again.
“What I do isn’t premeditated,” McRae says. “So even though he told me never to do something like that again, I can’t say I’ll never do it again. I’ve been tearing things up since I was a kid.”
Asked to name his worst temper tantrum and the havoc he created, he demurs.
“Too many to talk about,” he says.
If he colored his hair green, people would be comparing him to Dennis Rodman. He also has been bad as he wants to be.
Cubs pitching coach Ferguson Jenkins remember Brian’s father, Hal, as being more even-tempered as a major-league player and manager. Hal now is Cincinnati’s hitting instructor.
“I played eight years against Hal and never saw a temper,” Jenkins says. “Not like Brian. But genes are a part of it. Brian also plays as hard as anybody I’ve ever seen.”
His hatred for losing and his love for straight talk made him an instant kindred spirit with Mark Grace when McRae was obtained from Kansas City in April, 1995, for pitchers Derek Wallace and Geno Morones.
“It was a personal boost for Mark to have someone in the clubhouse as feisty as him and with as much fire,” Riggleman says. “Brian has brought the best out in Mark.”
Grace knows how McRae’s personality was formed.
“By growing up in Kansas City around guys like Amos Otis, George Brett, Willie Wilson and Frank White,” Grace says, “he learned winning baseball. I’ve always tried to instill my values into my teammates and Brian does it the same way.
“We’re not all going to be like Sammy Sosa, whose philosophy is `see ball, hit ball.’ The rest of us with fewer talents have to talk to each other all the time in the dugout about what this pitcher throws on a 1-1 count or with two strikes. We share information.”
Riggleman believes McRae views the game in much the way he does: as a manager.
“He thinks ahead,” Riggleman says. “He doesn’t just see his own piece of the world. He understands the game and other peoples’ roles in it.”
True as that is, McRae also is an isolationist. Ever since some ex-teammates in Kansas City teased him for playing for his dad, who was the Royals’ manager, he has learned to function behind a wall.
“I didn’t respond,” he says. “I wouldn’t let them bother me. I’d let guys have fun with it and ignore it. But nobody knows what I can and cannot do better than myself, not even (Cubs’ management because) they’ve only seen me two years. I look to myself and talk to my dad, but what other people think of me and their perceptions I pay no attention to.
“That’s the only way I can play the game and be productive. I do what I want to do. I say what I want to say. Some people may not like it. I know what I have to do.”
He irritated some management personnel earlier this year when he stated around the All-Star break that the Cubs were not a very good team.
“I didn’t say we were bad, just not that good,” he adds. “We finished two games over .500 last year and some people around here thought that was a big deal. What’s good about that?
“As a team, we’re not good enough to win right now. That’s all I care about, being good enough to win. The team we have now, if we get real, real hot, we might finish five to seven games over .500 or if we get real, real cold, we might finish five to seven games below .500.
“I’m not saying we can’t win or do this and that. But we have to push harder.”
His attitude is appreciated as much as his playing ability.
“It’s no secret we want him back with us,” Riggleman says of a player who will be a free agent at season’s end.
It was also no secret his name was mentioned in trade talks, more so in late May and early June than late July. Baltimore confirmed that on the record, miffing the Cubs’ front office by taking away its fallback position that rumors will be rumors.
With the Cubs, as independent and tough-minded as McRae is, he accepts orders. For instance, Riggleman argues McRae compares favorably with the New York Mets’ Lance Johnson as a leadoff hitter even though McRae disagrees.
“I’d be better off hitting somewhere else in the lineup, say sixth, where I could drive in more runs,” he says. “Because when contract talks start, they are going to compare me to other center-fielders, not leadoff hitters, and they are going to point to my RBI totals.
“If I wanted to be selfish, I’d complain about that now. Because it will hurt me come contract time. But they need me to hit leadoff, and that’s what I’m doing.
“I’m not in this game for money. I’m not in this game for myself. I’m in this game to win. I can be a team player. But, after the game, I’m going to speak my own mind and be myself.
“It doesn’t take long before people know where they stand with me.”
For Grace, it’s right next to him.
“I’m sure there will be a lot of calls from my house in San Diego to his house in Kansas City this winter,” says Grace, whose contract stipulates he can stay or leave next season. “And we will both be calling (free agent) Jaime Navarro in Milwaukee to find out what he’s thinking. Let’s just say, we’re all in this together.”
Just watch out for those shattering light fixtures. Around McRae, you best wear a batter’s helmet at all times.
