OMAHA, Nebraska — Jesse James Pulley began his first round of chemotherapy the day the players visited him. The 9-year-old had just been diagnosed with stage III Burkitt lymphoma and everything was new and scary. Upon hearing the news of her son's cancer a week earlier, Leann Pulley fainted.
June 4 was the day Jesse met Kirby Connell and Zander Sechrist at East Tennessee Children's Hospital, three days before the Tennessee Volunteers played in the super regionals. Sechrist is a starting pitcher on the No. 1-ranked Vols; Connell is one of the most popular people in Knoxville with his big arm, big personality, and handlebar mustache that he curls for baseball games. Tennessee turns to the high-leverage reliever when the going gets tough, which is appropriate. Perhaps no one on the team is hairier than Connell.
Jesse James Pulley is shy around people he doesn't know, his mother said, but when Connell and Sechrist, along with Tennessee pitchers AJ Russell and Austin Hunley, walked into the room, he lit up.
“What are you doing, friend?” Connell asked him and shook his hand.
Jesse was playing Mario Kart and Russell challenged him to a game. But Connell didn't support his teammate. He encouraged Jesse and gave him pep talks the entire way.
“It's his first round of chemo. He was scared,” Leann said. “Seeing someone come in and lift your spirits like that… I don't know how to describe it, but it's like a tingling feeling to see your child happy, with someone they look up to.”
Before leaving, the pitchers signed a baseball for Jesse. Connell scribbled his name right below Sechrist's.
Jesse can't play minor league baseball; His asthma is so bad that he has had to wait. But every time he goes to the hospital for treatment, he packs that ball and throws it back and forth from his bed. One time, Leann suggested to her son that she bring a different ball so the autographs wouldn't rub off.
“No, mom,” he told her.
“They gave me this one.”
THE CITY OF Knoxville is crazy about its Volunteers and no one is more loved than Connell.
But it's hard to write a story about Connell without Sechrist because they are the elder statesmen who have a combined nine years of good and bad times. The most important thing is that they are always close to each other. You may have seen them in Knoxville, eating at Texas Roadhouse, Chipotle or Chick-Fil-A. Or on the stand holding mock press conferences, taking advantage of each other's jokes, enjoying these last few days together.
They're roommates on the road and fools in the bullpen and dugout—that is, until it's time to act. Their final game at Lindsey Nelson Stadium earlier this month was a true measure of what Connell and Sechrist have meant to the team, the UT community and each other.
With the Vols in a 1-1 super regional series with Evansville, and a trip to the Men's College World Series on the line, Sechrist earned the start for Game 3. He was in command throughout, dishing out six hits and a run in 6⅓ entries. . Two innings later, with Tennessee up 12-1, Connell came on in relief in the ninth, essentially saying goodbye to his adoring fans, facing a batter, striking him out, and exiting to a cheer.
After the game, Sechrist said this to reporters about Connell: “We've been through hell together. He'll be at my wedding, he'll be at my funeral. He'll always be there for me. That friendship will never end.” die.”
But before all that sentimental stuff, there was a little drama. Vols assistant coach Richard Jackson said Sechrist should come out after the sixth inning. After all, he had thrown 100 pitches.
Sechrist, full of adrenaline, had Connell run to the bullpen to give Jackson a message: Sechrist was not coming out of the game. He said he knew he could get the next batter out, and he did, with just two pitches. He then he sat down.
“No one has ever sent a player over and said, 'Hey, don't open that door for anyone when we get back,'” Jackson said. “It took me a second to process it.
“You have to earn it 100%, and he has built his career and earned the right to do that.”
As much as Connell pushes for his friend, he's also quick to point out that Sechrist can act…unconventionally on the mound.
“He just does non-baseball stuff,” Connell said. “For example, he jumps, spins, draws things in the air. No one is near him and he screams. He chews too much gum. Those are just a few things.”
Connell said that in super regionals, when Sechrist would get out of a jam with the bases loaded, he would stand in the dugout and yell the words “lemon squeeze.”
Sechrist said he was excited and blurted out everything that was on his mind. However, he has no idea why he said that.
“Maybe,” Connell said, “I was thinking about making lemonade later.”
THEY MET DURING COVID-19. Neither pitcher was a big-name recruit, but both ended up helping establish the culture of a program that has reached three Men's College World Series in the last four years. Connell, now a graduate student, was a sophomore in 2021 when he met Sechrist, then a freshman. Connell's partner abandoned him one day, so he started pitching with Sechrist.
That year was also when the mustache first appeared, although in a more faint form.
“And then it got longer and longer,” Connell said, “and it just fell into place. You know, a lot of people knew me as the guy with the mustache. So I had to keep it and now it's just gone a little bit. hands.
“It's very long. Sometimes it gets in my mouth.”
The waxed handlebar mustache is reminiscent of another legendary reliever, Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers. Connell said he watched videos of Fingers' release. He also earned the nickname “Vollie Fingers.”
“He's like the Dale Earnhardt of Knoxville, Tennessee,” Sechrist said. “Everyone here is going to cheer him on no matter where he is in life, no matter what team he's on.
“I remember one time he told a kid at LSU that he shaves [his mustache] before each weekend and grows again in three days. And the boy believed him, which was very funny. “That mustache… you can't stop looking at it.”
Connell has made an even bigger name for himself on the mound. He has appeared in a school-record 125 games with a 3.12 ERA over his five-year career with 145 strikeouts, 27 walks and 130 hits with a 10-2 record.
His appearance in Sunday's MCWS game against North Carolina came at a crucial moment, in 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 choice, catching a runner stealing and striking out Gavin Gallaher.
“I'd rather be a relief pitcher than a starter,” Connell said. “I'm not going to lie. I'm also weird. I'd rather come in with the bases loaded and no outs than start an inning.
“There's a lot of pressure built up. But you know, pressure makes diamonds.”
SECHRIST SAYS CONNELL He will always be remembered in Tennessee for all the charitable work he has done. East Tennessee Children's Hospital patients throw out the ceremonial first pitch at UT games, and Connell volunteered to be the catcher.
It would encourage the children and calm them down. When she visited the hospital, she made it a point to interact with as many patients as she could.
Chelsea Smith, a child life specialist at East Tennessee Children's Hospital, called Connell's visits a “game changer” for the children.
“They're not going to remember this difficult time in their lives where they were hospitalized and they're going to remember the chemotherapy drips and the vomiting and the IVs and the ports,” Smith said. “They will remember these baseball players playing video games with them, telling them jokes, bumping fists with them and giving them a signed baseball.
“That's why this kind of work really matters. I'm so grateful for what Kirby did.”
Jesse James Pulley likes that Connell is left-handed like him. He loves Connell's long hair and mustache. Jesse will soon lose his hair due to his treatments and wanted to dye it blue before it happened. So he now he has blue hair.
He'll watch the games when he can, rooting for a Tennessee team that has never won a Men's College World Series but is just one win away from reaching the championship series. And he will look for his favorite player.
“That feeling you get is like a feeling of security,” Leann Pulley said. “I know it's very strange to describe it. But it's like he's been doing it his whole life.
“He's like a better big brother.”
