Clint Hurdle

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Clint Hurdle, born July 30, 1957, in Big Rapids, Michigan, is a former American baseball outfielder and manager. He played in the major leagues for the Kansas City Royals, Cincinnati Reds, New York Mets, and St. Louis Cardinals, appearing in 515 games with a .259 batting average, 32 home runs, and 193 runs batted in.

After his playing days, Hurdle became a manager. He climbed through the minor leagues and joined the Colorado Rockies as a hitting coach in 1997, then became their manager in 2002. In 2007, he led Colorado to the franchise’s first National League pennant and a World Series appearance (the Rockies were swept by the Boston Red Sox). He was fired in 2009.

Hurdle spent 2009-2010 with MLB Network as a studio analyst before becoming the Texas Rangers’ hitting coach in 2009. In 2010 he was hired by the Pittsburgh Pirates as their manager. Under his leadership, the Pirates made the playoffs in 2013, 2014, and 2015, and he won the National League Manager of the Year Award in 2013. He earned his 1,000th win as a manager in 2016. The Pirates fired him in September 2019, and he retired from baseball soon after.

In 2021, Hurdle returned to baseball as a special assistant to the Colorado Rockies’ general manager. In 2025, he was named the Rockies’ hitting coach for the remainder of the season, and on May 11 he became interim bench coach while keeping his hitting coach duties after the manager and bench coach were fired.

Hurdle’s family life includes his father’s influence in baseball; he moved with his family from Michigan to Florida as a child. He was a standout athlete in high school and was drafted ninth overall by the Royals in 1975. He also played winter ball in Venezuela, where he led the league in walks in multiple seasons.

Hurdle has been married more than once and has four children: Ashley, Madison, and Christian, along with his wife Karla. Madison was born with Prader-Willi syndrome. He is a recovering alcoholic and an advocate for Alcoholics Anonymous and for Prader-Willi syndrome charities.