This story was excerpted from Alex Stumpf’s Pirates Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
DETROIT -- Pittsburgh was always Don Kelly’s home, but for six years, his home away from home was a little less than 300 miles away on I-80.
Kelly is a Pittsburgh kid and broke through to the Majors with the Pirates, but Detroit is where he made a name for himself, a stalwart of Jim Leyland’s bench. For a team jam-packed with All-Stars and future Hall of Famers, Kelly also became a fan favorite -- if not a bit of a cult hero -- for his style of baseball.
“I think that just going out there, being a team guy and doing everything that I could in those times to help us win,” Kelly said after trying to laugh off the compliment of being a fan favorite. “I hope that I did that, and that's what my goal was.”
It was with Detroit that the seeds of Kelly one day being a coach or manager started to be planted. He’d try to manage along with Leyland in his head to try to figure out how he could enter a game, whether it was as a pinch-hitter or defensive replacement. When Kelly did hang up his spikes after the 2016 season, his first jobs were in the player development and scouting departments with the Tigers.
But to get into coaching, Kelly went to the Astros, becoming the first-base coach for A.J. Hinch’s staff. Kelly’s had a couple homecomings to Detroit now since the Pirates play at least two games a year against the Tigers, but Tuesday was the first time he had been on the top step of the dugout.
And opposing him was the manager who gave him his first chance as a coach.
“I hope we make him miserable for three days being back in Detroit,” Hinch said. “We can cheer him, but let's leave him in three days miserable. Everybody loves him, you know.”
There was plenty that Hinch liked about Kelly when he made the hire ahead of the 2019 season. Kelly was a utility player, so he had a lot of practical knowledge of the game. He also showed a natural curiosity about the game, as evidenced by his stops in scouting and player development.
“I liked how he could be relatable to the players, and I thought he could impact players, which is why I brought him on our staff,” Hinch said. “[We] got to the World Series with him as a coach, and then he was off on his way to Pittsburgh."
“I always appreciate A.J. giving me that first opportunity in Houston,” Kelly said. “With this being the second home in Detroit, outside of the games that we play them, [I'm] always pulling for the Tigers.”
Kelly parlayed that second coaching opportunity as the Pirates’ bench coach to become the manager of his hometown team, but it was in Detroit where he got to fully experience what it means to be a Major Leaguer, including reaching some of the highs of the sport.
“When you get to the big leagues, you feel like you made it to the top of baseball, which you do. And then you make the playoffs,” Kelly said. “The feeling and the vibe and the energy and the pressure is something you haven't felt before. And that's what we're working towards here is getting to that spot.”