Tennessee Baseball Dealt More Bad News

The Tennessee Volunteers have been doing a good job when it comes to their baseball production in recent years, but they will be without their star coach, after he accepted a job that will move him away from the Tennessee Volunteers coaching staff.

That coach being Tony Vitello, who many believed and still do believe is the greatest first-time hire for the MLB. That very well could be the case, as he is the first and only college baseball coach to make a move to the MLB to become a manager for an organization without ever having any coaching experience in the MLB, that being as he accepted the manager role for the San Francisco Giants. He is also the highest-paid first-time manager of all time under a three-year contract.

He detailed this in his coaching intro with the San Francisco Giants.

“Obviously, thank you to Buster (Posey), to Zach (Minasian), to Greg Johnson, Larry (Baer), all the ownership, really all the organization, and I know players feedback was important. That’s kind of where my whole deal has started, is with players. Gavin Kilen, who some of you may know, was fortunate enough to be a first-round pick here, and that’s where some of those conversations exist between the college level and the pro level. Obviously, something all those players are aspiring to do is make it to the big leagues. And, as this process has gone on, it’s been funny. I’ve gotten a lot of text messages about living out your dream, or somebody said, when you have baseball cards when you’re little, which I still have some, I don’t know if they’re worth anything or not, did you dream or you dreamed of being this? I never dreamed of being a major league baseball player. I don’t know why. My skill level wasn’t very high. I think it was just so far above the clouds that I never even saw it. And, for me as a coach, I was just kind of trying to make my way. I got thrust into a position at a young age that I probably didn’t even deserve. So I was just trying to do a good job. And fortunately, it helped get me to the next spot and the next spot and the next spot. And eventually, this did become a dream where I just kind of decided if I was blessed enough to receive an opportunity, this is something I wanted to do before I was done coaching in general. And now I’m incredibly humbled and blessed to do so. So, it is a dream come true, but it’s a very recent dream. It wasn’t one I had for a while. And as much as I’d love to sit up here and promise things and pound my fist on the desk and all that, really, all I want to do is a good job. And I think because of being around my dad and being blessed around winning players, similar to Buster, those standards are very high. I know it’ll be a question later, I have spent some some time around this organization, either as a fan or just watching or, again, through business ways, I’m fully aware of the tradition that’s here and the excellence that’s been brought by managers like (Bruce) Bochy, Dusty Baker, the toughness from guys like (Madison) Baumgardner and (Sergio) Romo. The loyalty, which is incredibly important, word to me and my family, which is epitomized by the guy to my right (Buster Posey). The records that have been set by guys like (Barry) Bonds and (Willie) Mays and (Tim) Lincecum and everybody else. The one thing that always got to me was the family, the sense of family that was a part of this organization. And one of the players I coached came up during Hunter Pence’s playing days and just talked about how good that guy was to everybody in the organization, especially younger aspiring players and rookies. So, there’s a lot to learn from the past. And there is very high expectations, very high standards to meet because of the past. And this is a challenge that’s been presented to me. I’m humbled and honored to be here in front of you today to take on that challenge.”

Tennessee is Dealt More Bad News