Before his Diamondbacks split-squad team played the Padres on Tuesday in Peoria, manager Chip Hale was asked if he remembered what happened 25 years ago on May 27.
He couldn’t.
Until the name Rodney McCray was mentioned.
“Oh yeah. He crashed through the wall,” Hale said. “Yeah, of course I remember it.”
It was May 27, 1991, and Hale was playing for the Triple-A Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League. They were home against the Edmonton Trappers and Hale launched a deep fly ball to right field. McCray was Edmonton’s right fielder that night and, as he tracked the ball on a dead sprint, he ended up crashing through the outfield plywood wall.