Don Kelly took over as manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates in May, and the Baltimore Orioles hired Craig Albernaz as their next manager earlier this week. Both hires felt like victories for Detroit Tigers fans.
The Kelly-Albernaz connection is one of those quietly heartwarming baseball stories that resonates especially deeply with Tigers fans, because it’s about perseverance, shared roots, and how two unheralded former Tigers farmhands climbed to the top of the baseball world – together, and on their own terms.
Both Kelly and Albernaz once wore the uniform of the Erie Seawolves, Detroit’s Double-A affiliate in the mid-to-late 2000s.