SAN FRANCISCO — Rodney McCray played in 67 major league games. He started precisely none of them.
When he made his debut as a 26-year-old with the Chicago White Sox in 1990, appearing in 32 games exclusively as a pinch runner and defensive replacement, he received a total of seven plate appearances. Getting his first hit? He’d have to wait another year for that. When he finally collected that milestone, it came in his 44th career game. He would go on to collect two more hits before his major-league career ended with the New York Mets in 1992.
He was not known for hitting balls over the fence. He was known for being the guy who ran through one. It’s never fair when an athlete or artist or musician or anyone who performs in the public realm has their professional life reduced to one moment. It can feel even more unfair when that moment is a decades-long staple in ballpark blooper reels. Yes, that was Rodney McCray in the grainy video. He was the Triple-A outfielder who crashed not into but through the wall at Portland’s Civic Stadium on May 27, 1991, taking out a panel of the yellow plywood Flav-R-Pac sign while chasing a fly ball that kept carrying in the breeze.
The enduring notoriety hasn’t been all bad. How many baseball players can say that they have a highlight clip that runs on a loop in Cooperstown? But so much more happened in McCray’s baseball life than that wall-crashing blooper. Mostly, there was the perseverance he displayed while playing six consecutive seasons without a promotion to Double A. He could always steal a base or run down a ball in the gap. It must have felt like a curse for someone so quick to have to exercise such patience. But he kept showing up until his time finally arrived.
McCray embraced a different kind of grind after his playing days, working as a roving outfield and base-running instructor for the Montreal Expos and Kansas City Royals, then for longer periods with the Cincinnati Reds and Los Angeles Dodgers. He was living mostly out of a suitcase and traveling through every level of the Reds system in 2000 when his son, Grant, was born. When Grant was old enough, he’d tag along with his father on one minor-league assignment or another.
There are sons of big leaguers who understand nothing but privilege. Grant McCray was a son of a big leaguer who understood nothing but the grind of getting there.
“With him being a rover, I got to see all levels from short-season, rookie ball, A-ball, Double A, Triple A …” said Grant McCray, who signed out of a Florida high school after the Giants drafted him in the third round in 2019. “It got me ready to achieve my dream. I wanted to be a big-league baseball player. I knew I had to take my steps and pay my dues. It’s no joke. So I came in with a smile on my face and a chip on my shoulder every day.”
Grant McCray took the last and most important step Wednesday night. He made his major league debut with the Giants, batting ninth and playing center field at their waterfront ballpark, and he was jumpy while striking out in his first at-bat. He finished 0-for-4. But he wouldn’t have to wait much longer — not another year, certainly not until his 44th game — to collect his first hit.
He achieved it in somewhat awkward fashion in the second inning Thursday when Giants manager Bob Melvin, at his wit’s end with his team’s lack of situational hitting, put on a rare bunt sign with the bases loaded. McCray’s tapper back to the mound was too strong and Atlanta Braves pitcher Max Fried shoveled his feed to the plate in time for a forceout. But Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud dropped the ball.
Grant McCray’s first major-league hit was a bunt single with the bases loaded in the second inning. (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
The official scorer was generous. No error on the catcher. Instead, McCray got credit for a hit and an RBI.
They say that nobody can take your first big-league hit away from you. That’s not true, of course. Scoring decisions get changed all the time. But just in case McCray’s bunt single turns into a fielder’s choice, he followed up with a hit that was as permanent as they come. Batting in the sixth inning against right-hander Jesse Chavez, McCray barreled up a first-pitch cutter and hit a drive to center field.
For the first time, and at the game’s highest level, a McCray cleared the fence.
“I blacked out, honestly,” he said. “I rounded second and was like, ‘This is for real.’ I was just overwhelmed with excitement.”
In Section 119, where his family was glued to every moment, it was more like complete delirium.
“I think I jumped 7 feet in the air,” said Grant McCray’s sister, Sydney, who just enrolled at Grand Canyon University in Arizona on a softball scholarship. “The poor people around me. I think I had to apologize to some of them.”
“I was known for bunting, so for my son to get his first big-league hit that way is great,” Rodney McCray said. “But then he got the legit hit! He went from a bunt to a home run. When he walked in the fourth inning, I said to myself, ‘He’s locked in. He’s not chasing.’ I could tell by his body language. And Chavez came in, OK, he can relax a little bit, maybe see a pitch or two. And he jumps on the first pitch. I’m like, ‘Wow!’
“Oh man, life is about timing, isn’t it? This is the dream. It’s what he wanted to do. He used to follow me around in the minor leagues and say this is what he wanted to do. He put in the work and I’m so proud of him. I’m ecstatic. So very excited.”
Grant McCray goes yard for the first time and his dad was loving it 🥹 pic.twitter.com/MbuXp08MxD
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) August 15, 2024
The timing couldn’t have been better. Rodney McCray lives in Texas and Grant’s mother, Penny Snow, lives in Florida, but both of them were relatively close in Arizona while helping Sydney move into her college dorm. The family planned to pay a surprise visit to Grant in Sacramento this week.
“I beat them to the punch,” Grant said, smiling.
Rodney McCray was on a gold course in Scottsdale when Grant called him Wednesday morning with the news that he’d be starting for the Giants that night.
“I’m like, ‘Dude, do not play with my emotions right now,’” Rodney McCray said, laughing. “It all got real quick.”
Hasty travel plans were arranged but there was enough time before the first pitch Wednesday to think of those minor-league roving trips and getting to introduce Grant to big leaguers like Deion Sanders, Ken Griffey Jr. and Pokey Reese with the Reds. The were the times in spring training when Dodgers big leaguers would stay back from road exhibition games to get extra work in the outfield. That’s how Grant got to meet Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier.
“I have a picture of him with the great Tommy Lasorda,” said Rodney McCray, before remembering what big-league uniform his son was wearing. “Oooh. Oooh! We’re talking about that other blood. Can’t have that now!”
Of all the players Grant met through his father, he might have gotten the closest with former Dodgers second baseman and speedster Dee Gordon, who remains in close touch. He wouldn’t miss a chance to go with his father to Great Lakes, the Dodgers’ High-A affiliate in Midland, Mich., because he knew two things. One, he’d get to hang out with Dee, and two, his dad would go all out cooking dinner: gumbo, red beans and rice, chicken and dumplings.
Grant isn’t sure how long it’ll take to return the hundreds of messages he got after the Giants promoted him, and the hundreds more that poured in after he hit the home run Thursday. But the text he received from Gordon stood out.
“I’m just glad I could bring that excitement to my family and everybody else in the ballpark,” Grant McCray said. “The first game was a little nerve-wracking. Just trying to calm my nerves. The first two at-bats were kind of rough. But I came in today with the mindset of it’s just another game and play hard and do your job.
“I can just tell myself that I’m a big leaguer now. That’s the biggest thing.”
The Giants called him up with their season on the brink. They won 6-0 behind Logan Webb, who came to the rescue in a twofold sense yet again. Webb took his shutout into the eighth inning to preserve a bullpen that was exhausted a day earlier when Robbie Ray retired just two of the eight batters he faced. He won his fourth consecutive start and has posted a 0.61 ERA over that span. Webb is once again leading the league in innings pitched yet gaining steam on his stuff instead of losing it. Casey Schmitt also contributed three hits including a two-run homer as the Giants avoided getting swept in the four-game series, moved back to .500 and stayed on the periphery of the NL wild-card standings.
Logan Webb, Filthy 93mph Two Seamer. 😷 pic.twitter.com/g5rm13q0qT
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 15, 2024
The series would’ve turned out much differently if the Giants had put together better situational at-bats while losing consecutive one-run games in the 10th inning on Monday and Tuesday. Melvin acknowledged that those failures were on his mind when he put on the bunt sign and hoped that Grant McCray, in a difficult left-on-left matchup against Fried, could make something happen with a bunt.
“We’ve been in that situation a bunch and haven’t scored,” Melvin said. “So we had to try something different.”
What did Grant McCray think when he saw the sign?
“I’m not afraid to do it,” he said. “I’ll do it on my own. I was like, ‘That might be a fielder’s choice.’ But I’ll take a free hit. That won’t hurt my feelings.”
Another hit is more evidence to present in a long-running and good-spirited argument between father and son.
“His whole thing has been, ‘Dad, I’m better than you,’” Rodney McCray said with a laugh. “OK, he’s a better hitter. As far as fielding defense and speed we’re the same. But I’d say to him, ‘Dude, until you get to the big leagues, you’re not better than me.’ So last night, he made it. And I told him, ‘OK, now you’re better than me.’
“I’m good with that.”
(Top photo of Grant McCray reacting after hitting his first big-league home run: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
