MCWS 2024: How Kirby Connell turned beloved in Tennessee

OMAHA, Nebraska — Jesse James Pulley began his first spherical of chemotherapy the day the ballplayers visited. The 9-year-old had simply been recognized with Stage III Burkitt lymphoma, and every thing was new and terrifying. Upon listening to the information of her son’s most cancers per week earlier, Leann Pulley blacked out.

June 4 was the day Jesse met Kirby Connell and Zander Sechrist on the East Tennessee Kids’s Hospital, three days earlier than the Tennessee Volunteers performed in tremendous regionals. Sechrist is a beginning pitcher on the No. 1-ranked Vols; Connell is likely one of the hottest folks in Knoxville together with his massive arm, massive persona and handlebar mustache that he curls for baseball video games. Tennessee calls on the high-leverage reliever when issues get furry, which is suitable. Maybe nobody on the workforce is hairier than the long-locked Connell.

Jesse James Pulley is shy when he is round folks he would not know, his mother mentioned, however when Connell and Sechrist — together with Tennessee pitchers AJ Russell and Austin Hunley — walked into the room, he lit up.

“What are you doing, dude?” Connell requested him and shook his hand.

Jesse was enjoying Mario Kart, and Russell challenged him to a recreation. However Connell didn’t root for his teammate. He cheered on Jesse, giving him pep talks all the way in which.

“It is his first spherical of chemo. He was scared,” Leann mentioned. “To see somebody are available and carry his spirits like that … I do not know describe it, nevertheless it’s similar to a tingling feeling to see your youngster completely satisfied, with somebody who they give the impression of being as much as.”

Earlier than they left, the pitchers signed a baseball for Jesse. Connell scribbled his title proper under Sechrist’s.

Jesse cannot play little league baseball — his bronchial asthma is just too unhealthy so he has needed to wait. However each time he goes to the hospital for therapy, he packs that ball, and tosses it backwards and forwards from his mattress. One time, Leann advised her son convey a unique ball so the autographs would not get smudged.

“No, mother,” he informed her.

“They gave me this one.”

THE CITY OF Knoxville is gaga over their Volunteers, and nobody is extra beloved than Connell.

But it surely’s laborious to write down a narrative about Connell with out Sechrist as a result of they’re the elder statesmen who’ve 9 mixed years of the great occasions and unhealthy. Most significantly, they’re at all times round one another. Maybe you’ve got seen them in Knoxville, consuming out at Texas Roadhouse, Chipotle or Chick-Fil-A. Or on the dais holding mock information conferences, feeding off every others’ jokes, having fun with these previous few days collectively.

They’re roommates on the highway and goofballs within the bullpen and dugout, that’s, till it is time to toe the slab. Their remaining recreation at Lindsey Nelson Stadium earlier this month was a real measure of what Connell and Sechrist have meant to the workforce, the UT neighborhood, and to one another.

With the Vols in a 1-1 tremendous regional sequence with Evansville, and a visit to the Males’s School World Sequence on the road, Sechrist earned the beginning for Recreation 3. He was in command all through, scattering six hits and one run over 6⅓ innings. Two innings later, with Tennessee up 12-1, Connell got here on in aid within the ninth, primarily to say goodbye to his adoring followers, dealing with one batter, placing him out and leaving to an ovation.

After the sport, Sechrist mentioned this to reporters about Connell: “We have been by hell collectively. He’ll be at my marriage ceremony, he’ll be at my funeral. He’ll at all times be there for me. That friendship won’t ever die.”

However earlier than all that sentimental enterprise, there was slightly drama. Vols assistant coach Richard Jackson mentioned Sechrist was purported to exit after the sixth inning. He had thrown 100 pitches, in spite of everything.

Sechrist, driving an adrenaline excessive, had Connell run to the bullpen to present Jackson a message: Sechrist wasn’t popping out of the sport. He mentioned he knew he may get the subsequent batter out, and he did, with simply two pitches. Then he took a seat.

“I’ve by no means had someone ship a participant down and say, ‘Hey, do not open that gate for anybody once we return on the market,'” Jackson mentioned. “It took me a second to sort of course of it.

“You 100% should earn that, and he is put collectively the profession that he has earned the appropriate to do this.”

As a lot as Connell lobbies for his pal, he’s additionally fast to level out that Sechrist can act … unconventional on the mound.

“He simply does non-baseball issues,” Connell mentioned. “Like he jumps round, spins round, attracts issues within the air. Like, no one might be round him and he’ll be yelling. He chews approach an excessive amount of bubble gum. That is similar to a number of issues.”

Connell mentioned in tremendous regionals, when Sechrist acquired out of a bases-loaded jam, he stood within the dugout and yelled the phrases “lemon squeeze.”

Sechrist mentioned he was amped up and blurted out no matter was on his thoughts. He has no concept why he mentioned that, nevertheless.

“Perhaps,” Connell mentioned, “he was fascinated about making lemonade later.”

THEY MET DURING COVID-19. Neither pitcher was a big-name recruit, however each wound up serving to set the tradition for a program that has made it to a few Males’s School World Sequence up to now 4 years. Connell, who’s now a grad scholar, was a sophomore in 2021 when he met Sechrist, then a freshman. Connell’s accomplice ditched him sooner or later, so he began throwing with Sechrist.

That yr was additionally when the mustache first appeared, though in a extra subdued type.

“After which it simply acquired longer and longer,” Connell mentioned, “and simply sort of fell into the model. You already know, lots of people knew me because the man with the mustache. So I needed to hold it and now it is simply sort of gotten slightly out of hand.

“It is actually lengthy. Typically it will get into my mouth.”

The waxed handlebar mustache is paying homage to one other legendary reliever, Corridor of Famer Rollie Fingers. Connell mentioned he has watched video of Fingers pitching. He has additionally earned the nickname “Vollie Fingers.”

“He is just like the Dale Earnhardt of Knoxville, Tennessee,” Sechrist mentioned. “Everyone round right here goes to cheer for him regardless of the place he is at in life, it doesn’t matter what workforce he is on.

“I keep in mind one time he informed a child at LSU that he shaves [his mustache] earlier than each weekend, and it grows again in three days. And the child believed him, which was hilarious. That mustache … you’ll be able to’t unsee it.”

Connell has made a good larger title for himself on the mound. He has appeared in a school-record 125 video games, carrying a 3.12 ERA in his five-year profession with 145 strikeouts, 27 walks and 130 hits with a 10-2 file.

His look in Sunday’s MCWS recreation in opposition to North Carolina got here at a pivotal second, within the sixth inning with two runners on and no outs with the Vols up 4-1. He escaped the inning unscathed, forcing a fielder’s selection, catching a runner stealing and placing out Gavin Gallaher.

“I would a lot relatively be a aid pitcher than a starter,” Connell mentioned. “I am not going to lie. I am additionally bizarre. I would a lot relatively are available with the bases loaded and no outs than begin an inning.

“There’s a whole lot of stress constructed up. However you understand, stress makes diamonds.”

SECHRIST SAYS CONNELL will at all times be remembered in Tennessee due to all of the charity work he has completed. Sufferers from the East Tennessee Kids’s Hospital throw out the ceremonial first pitch at UT video games, and Connell volunteered to be the catcher.

He would encourage the youngsters and put them comfortable. When visiting the hospital, he made it a degree to interact with as many sufferers as he may.

Chelsea Smith, a toddler life specialist on the East Tennessee Kids’s Hospital, referred to as Connell’s visits a “game-changer” for the youngsters.

“They are not going to look again at this difficult season of their lives after they have been hospitalized and keep in mind chemotherapy drips, the vomiting, IVs, the ports,” Smith mentioned. “They will keep in mind these baseball gamers enjoying video video games with them, telling jokes with them, fist-bumping them, giving them a signed baseball.

“That is why this type of work actually issues. I am so grateful for what Kirby did.”

Jesse James Pulley likes that Connell is a lefty like him. He loves Connell’s lengthy hair and mustache. Jesse will lose his hair quickly due to his therapies, and he needed to dye it blue earlier than it occurred. So now he has blue hair.

He’ll watch the video games when he can, rooting for a Tennessee workforce that has by no means gained a Males’s School World Sequence however is only one win away from making the championship sequence. And he’ll search for his favourite participant.

“That feeling you get, it is like a secure feeling,” Leann Pulley mentioned. “I do know that is actually bizarre to explain. But it surely’s like he is been doing it his complete life.

“He is like an enormous finest brother.”