Cary Lundy, Head Baseball Coach
11th Season
Cary Lundy enters his 11th season as the head baseball coach at Park University as the school's winningest head baseball coach and the only skipper to total 250 wins, picking up career win No. 250 in a 6-3 triumph over Hannibal-LaGrange University on April 18, 2011.
Lundy is 278-196-1 in 10 previous seasons at the helm of the Pirates, including a school-record 34 wins in 2009, surpassing a pair of 30-win seasons for Park also under Lundy's guidance in 2003 and 2006.
The 2012 season featured NAIA All-America Honorable Mention and AMC Player of the Year third baseman Kyle Clifton as the Pirates had four players earn first-team all-conference accolades and six honorable mention selections.
Park's 26 wins in 2012 marked the 10th-consecutive season for Coach Lundy winning at least 22 games.
His 2011 team got off to one of Park's fastest starts, winning 15 of its first 17 games, ending the year with four first-team all-conference selections, another five honorable-mention honorees, a gold-glove first baseman in Ryan Rush, and 12 academic all-conference performers in the American Midwest Conference.
In 2010, Lundy had the Pirates within a game of playing for the 2010 American Midwest Conference Baseball Tournament championship, falling to William Woods University on the tournament's final day after picking up five all-conference designations, a freshman of the year award for shortstop Jimmy Smelcer, and seven academic-all conference awards. Lundy led the Pirates to 28 wins, including an 8-2 start through the team's first 10 games.
The 2010 season also saw the program's second-ever player drafted when Darian Sandford, Park's stolen bases leader with 99 career swipes, was picked in the 47th round by the Kansas City Royals of the 2010 first-year player draft. Sandford was one of four players to play professionally off of the 2010 team.
Park opened the 2009 season with a school-record 12-0 start, and during the season, his team produced a 16-4 record at home while putting together a 15-5 mark in the program's final season in the Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference.
The 2009 Pirates appeared in the NAIA Top 25 Coaches Poll and at season's end, the Pirates had a shot at conference supremacy, but Park fell to Bellevue in the MCAC championship game, 10-4.
Lundy's Pirates fell just short of postseason competition in 2009 as the last team out of the 2009 Avista-NAIA World Series Opening Round. In all, 2009 produced five First-Team All-MCAC performers, one Rawlings/MCAC Gold Glove Honoree, two Daktronics-NAIA Scholar Athletes, seven Honorable Mention All-MCAC selections and the league's pitcher of the year, Josh Hake.
During the conference tournament, Lundy also picked up his 200th career win, beating York 5-4 on May 5. He then picked up No. 201 that same day, defeating Peru State, 17-4.
In 2008, Lundy managed the team to 28 wins, and the team was one win away from advancing to an NAIA Super Regional, falling to Bellevue University in the NAIA Region IV title game.
Park also played for a shot at the MCAC tournament title in Omaha, Neb., and at the conclusion of the 2008 season, Park had its first player drafted during the Lundy Era when Hake was taken in the 50th round of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the Philadelphia Phillies.
In 2006, he guided the Pirates to the Region IV Tournament championship game, while in 2007, his Pirates qualified for the tournament, amassing 28 wins and finishing the season seven games above .500.
Before taking over the program in 2003, he served for three seasons as an assistant coach at Park, starting when the program was reinstated in 2000.
During the summer months, Lundy coaches UMB Bank in Kansas City's prestigious Ban Johnson League, leading his squads to seven league championships. In addition, he has also served as a recommending scout for the Cincinnati Reds organization.
A 1982 graduate of Park and native of Kansas City, Mo., Lundy played baseball, basketball and ran cross country as a Pirate. He has two children, J.D. and Kiely.
Brian McRae, Assistant Baseball Coach
1st Season
10-year Major League Baseball veteran and former Kansas City Royals player Brian McRae joins the Pirates' baseball staff for the 2013 season.
McRae, a Blue Springs native and the son of former Royals player, manager and coach Hal McRae, played for five MLB franchises, including the Royals, Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, Colorado Rockies and Toronto Blue Jays. His major league career began in 1990 after being drafted by the Royals in the first round of the 1985 first-year player draft.
He hit .261 in his career with 103 home runs and 532 RBIs, spending the majority of his career (1990-1994) in Kansas City, making his debut with the Royals on Aug. 7, 1990, against the Chicago White Sox. McRae played in more than 1,300 games in his major league career with over 5,100 at bats. He also stole 196 bases in 10 seasons.
McRae's main responsibilities will be hitting and baserunning, and will lend his knowledge to the outfielders.
McRae's coaching experience includes managing the Kansas City Sluggers, a traveling showcase baseball organization for 15-18 year olds in Kansas City. He also managed the 2012 Morehead City (N.C.) Marlins of the Coastal Plains League, a collegiate wood-bat summer organization.
He has also served as an analyst for the Chicago Cubs Network (WGN), MLB.com radio and ESPN's Baseball Tonight. He has also had ownership interest in WHB (810 AM), a sports radio station in Kansas City, and has devoted time to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
