Kyle “Bad News” Teel’s grand salami lifts Virginia to College World Series

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Way back in early April, when Virginia’s baseball team was a golf ball lost in the weeds, Brian O’Connor was looking for answers.

One of the issues was right field where no one was living up to expectations, so on the verge of the series at Georgia Tech, O’Connor decided to keep some players for extra practice late into the night for flyball work. Among those under inspection were Tate Ballestero, Addie Burrow and freshman Kyle Teel.

After the workout, O’Connor texted his coaching staff this note:

“Geez, Kyle Teel is Kelly Leak.”

Many of you probably had the same reaction as the younger members of O’Connor’s staff. Who the hell is Kelly Leak?

O’Connor quickly cleared up what he was talking about.

“That’s the kid with the long hair that rides the motorcycle, smokes cigarettes in the ‘Bad News Bears,’” O’Connor said. “You know, you can put the dude anywhere, and you know he’s running the ball down in centerfield. That’s Kyle Teel. I mean this guy pitched in the Northwoods League last summer, caught and played shortstop for the Kane’s travel ball team at times. You can play him anywhere. He’s athletic, he’s fearless.”

That’s where the love affair between O’Connor and Teel starts.

If anything, those feelings elevated mightily on Monday afternoon when with the bases loaded, two outs, Virginia trailing Dallas Baptist by 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh, Kelly Leak … or, er, Kyle Teel delivered big time.

Waiting on a slider from Patriots reliever Peyton Sherlin, Teel hammered the ball over the centerfield fence for a grand slam home run.

Game, set, match, Omaha.

The blast put the Cavaliers ahead for good at 5-2, clinching the best-of-three series, and allowed he and his teammates to live a lifelong dream of making it to the College World Series.

Just for some background, Kelly Leak was a local troublemaker, but happened to be the best athlete in the neighborhood, and helped the previously hapless Bad News Bears little league team reverse their fortunes in a fictional comedy starring Walter Matthau as Morris Buttermaker, a drunker, loud, ex-professional baseball pitcher and part-time pool cleaner, as coach of the Bears (1976).

Teel has little clue of who Kelly Leak was.

“I have not seen that movie, but [O’Connor] has been saying that since I came here, so, yeah, I don’t know much about him,” Teel said after his Monday heroics.

There is one quality about the star freshman that O’Connor particularly likes.

“The characteristic is that he’s fearless,” the UVA skipper said. “Kyle Teel is fearless. You can’t be afraid to win games at this level of baseball.

“You not only have to have skill, you can’t be afraid. You will crumble if you’re afraid. He’s got 100 percent belief in his ability, and he is going to let it rip every time he steps on the baseball field. That’s going to serve him well forever.”

The rookie from Mahwah, N.J., came into the weekend with a 20-game streak of reaching base, the longest by a Cavalier since 2019. He’s got an exceptionally strong arm and dangerous bat, which helped him earn freshman All-American honors.

No wonder that the unattributed quote, “No pressure, no diamonds,” is Teel’s favorite. The guy inhales pressure and blows it out hurricane force.

That’s what was going on when he was waiting on Sherlin’s pitch.

“I try to feel the same, do the same thing every time I go up there, knowing what I want to do and executing. Swing hard. That first pitch I got, I was out in front. I thought he’s going to keep throwing me that pitch (a slider) and he did.”

Getting to Omaha in his first year at UVA is beyond Teel’s imagination, particularly after how the team struggled out of the blocks this season. Once standing at 4-12 in conference play, and 11-14 overall, the Wahoos are now 35-25. They will meet No. 3 national seed Tennessee (50-16) on Sunday at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha (2 p.m. EST on ESPN2.

“Getting to Omaha our first year of college is a dream come true,” Teel said. “I mean, that’s what I wanted to do since I was little. Virginia was always my dream school. Every single day, just grinding it out, and we finally got the opportunity and capitalized.”

Perhaps the best is yet to come for the freshman with no fear.

Kelly Leak would approve.