It's Been 31 Years Since Hal McCrae's Legendary 'Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It' Meltdown

If you're a fan of managers and coaches completely losing their cool, then this is pretty much a holy day. That's because 31 years ago, then-Kansas City Royals skipper Hal McCrae unloaded one of the sport's all-time post-game freak-outs.

McCrae spent 19 seasons in Major League Baseball as a player and was a three-time All-Star, spending time with both the Cincinnati Reds and the Royals.

By 1993, McCrae was managing the Royals and on April 26 that year, the Royals fell to the Detroit Tigers 5-3, which dropped their early season record to 7-12 according to The Hardball Times' Chris Jaffey, who wrote a great retrospective of the moment back in 2013 - the 20th anniversary.

McCrae was speaking with the media and fielded a question without incident, but then a reporter asked what sounded like a seemingly innocuous question: "Did you consider (George) Brett for (Keith) Miller with the bases loaded in the seventh?"

Asking if he considered sending one of the franchise's all-time greats in to pinch hit with the bases loaded is far from an outlandish question, but it's the one that sent McCrae into a fit of rage.

Enjoy… (I grabbed the most SFW version I could find).
 

Feel free to watch that as many times as you deem necessary. I think I've watched at least four today alone.

There's just so much happening, and I feel like everyone can pick out one thing that is their favorite part of this Hall of Fame meltdown.

For me — as many iconic lines as they are like "Put that in your pipe and smoke it!" and the invention of the word "situ-f--k-uation" (that's in the extended cut) — my favorite moment is that spin-o-rama move McCrae pulls when he yanks the landline phone across his office. 

It's just a perfect combination of rage and grace rarely seen in tandem.

That phone was one of the many pieces of office equipment that got chucked around that day. You can see him wing what looks like a tape recorder at one point, and I think he probably broke enough microphones to keep a Guitar Center in business. 

According to a 2018 article from The Athletic, this freakout was so intense that there was one injury associated with it. Beat writer Alan Eskew sustained an inch-and-half-gash to the cheek (his face cheek) after getting hit by something he believes was an ashtray.