Don Kelly declined TV, several managing inquiries for a few very important reasons

NEW YORK -- The scene felt like something right out of “Moneyball.” It was October 2020. Don Kelly had just finished his first season as Pirates bench coach when the Red Sox called. They wanted to interview Kelly to become their manager.

So he flew to Boston, met with a bunch of people in the organization and returned to Pittsburgh thinking the next step in his career might involve Fenway Park. Kelly wrestled with the idea and talked it over with his wife, Carrie.

They were ready to make the move when Chaim Bloom, then Boston’s chief baseball officer, called and said the organization was going in a different direction. The Red Sox would ultimately hire Alex Cora.

“I had the strangest sense of peace when I got that call,” Kelly said. “Totally knew it was right and this is where I was supposed to be.”

What happened next reinforced those beliefs, as Carrie Kelly suffered a stroke a month later. But the entire ordeal, along with another brief flirtation with becoming a TV analyst, underscored values for Kelly that’ve never wavered.

“I’ve always believed in faith, family and friends,” Kelly said. “If you put those things first, everything always works out the way it’s supposed to.”

As Kelly experiences his first Opening Day as Pirates manager, succeeding two of his idols in Jim Leyland and Gene Lamont and charting a new course for an improved Pirates squad eying a postseason berth, it’s worth stepping back to appreciate two lesser-known moments that brought Kelly to this point.

After Kelly did not get the Red Sox job and Carrie went through a health scare — she has since returned to full health — it changed the manager’s perspective.

Over the next four years, Kelly turned down at least a half-dozen interview requests to manage and did so for a simple reason, one most Pirates fans will understand: He didn’t want to uproot his family, valuing stability and life in Pittsburgh too much to leave.

“Carrie used to get on me,” Kelly said. “She’s a rockstar. She’s doing great now. She’s my rock. She wanted me to go manage.

“But to be from Pittsburgh, to have the passion that we have for the city, to be at home with family … I felt like the best thing for us was to be in Pittsburgh.”

It certainly wasn’t easy. Kelly grew up trick-or-treating at Leyland’s house. The Pirates’ success in the early 1990s hooked Kelly on baseball. His skills were honed on various fields throughout the South Hills, in high school at Mt. Lebanon and college at Point Park.

After carving out a playing career for himself as a versatile bench piece and ultimately a cult hero in Detroit, Leyland was his manager, their friendship continuing into adulthood. Kelly always set career goals for himself, but the happiness of those around him was always more important.

Plus, Kelly to this day worries what might’ve happened had he gotten the Red Sox job. Winter Meetings that year were virtual. He almost assuredly would’ve been asked to fly to Boston. Carrie’s stroke occurred right as the Winter Meetings were starting.

Which is why, for myriad reasons, Kelly has never second-guessed his decision to turn down so many opportunities. Because he had what he cherishes more than anything: faith, family and friends.

“You never know when it might be your last call to potentially get a managerial job, but I was totally good with it,” Kelly said “If I would have gone my life and been the bench coach and the Pirates were winning, I’m good. I don’t need the title of manager.”

‘We all need that check’

Kelly’s relatability has been on full display this spring.

While taking over last May positively impacted the Pirates, the club going 59-65 after a 12-26 start, it was a similar story during Kelly’s first Spring Training in charge. Competition and fundamentals have been emphasized. The work has been hard, but Kelly has maintained a Leyland-like belief that it’s still a game.

Most noticeable with players, Kelly has been direct, honest and relatable, earning trust and gaining respect, things that’ll certainly show value over 162 games.

“Seeing how he was as a bench coach and how he is as a manager, it’s very similar,” Jared Triolo said. “That makes it easy for guys to respect him.”

“There’s a deeper understanding,” Isaac Mattson added.

“He gets it,” Bryan Reynolds said.

That respect for Kelly’s ability to grasp the obvious, to deflect credit and remain consistent in his approach, is something that’s noticed and appreciated from above him, as well.

Few people outside of Kelly’s family spend more time around him than general manager Ben Cherington. In their first Spring Training together, Cherington said his biggest takeaways involve Kelly’s values and the respect he’s earned from everyone more so than any amount of baseball knowledge.

“Every day he wakes up thinking about what he’s valuing and what we’re valuing in terms of behaviors, expectations and standards,” Cherington said. “Not only that but how we want to treat each other, how we communicate, how we want to play the game and how we practice.

“He’s consistently shown since last May the willingness to celebrate that when he sees it … but also confront it when it’s not happening, to be willing to have that hard conversation, too.

“I saw that last May. I’ve seen it this spring. And I believe that’s what our players want — to be held accountable. I think we all need that check from time to time.”

And just think: There was another time where it almost didn’t happen, saved by another of Kelly’s best traits.

‘It’s completely humbling’

After finishing his playing career, Kelly became a scout and assistant on the player development staff with the Detroit Tigers in 2017. That offseason, he was promoted to major league scout.

But not long after he started the new gig, actually during a scouting trip to Chicago, Kelly received a call from former AT&T SportsNet vice president and executive producer Doug Johnson gauging his interest in potentially succeeding Kent Tekulve as a pre- and postgame analyst.

Don and Carrie talked it over at home. The money checked out. Living in Pittsburgh year-round was certainly appealing. The Pirates manager even cut a demo tape — which he claims he’s never watched and hopes never becomes public.

But when talks advanced and the job became more and more real, Kelly simply couldn’t do it. The Tigers believed in him. They promoted him, passing up others to put him in that position.

“The loyalty that I had to the organization and to my boss and others, I just didn’t feel like it was the right time to make that jump,” Kelly said.

Kelly finished the season but couldn’t turn down the opportunity to be on the field again, coaching first base and working with infielders for AJ Hinch in Houston, the Astros’ success setting the stage for Kelly’s return home.

As the Pirates season nears, that winding path has brought Kelly here, overseeing a Pirates team that knows it needs to play the same gritty and scrappy brand of baseball that got Kelly to the Major Leagues as a player.

Calling the shots in the home dugout at PNC Park will be the local boy who made the right choices, even if they weren’t the easiest ones. And now, that proud Pittsburgher has the chance to write an incredible next chapter in his own story.

“As we sit here right now, you have Leyland over your shoulder,” Kelly said, pointing to a picture he has hanging on his wall. “Sitting in the same seat that he sat in, it’s completely humbling. I get chills thinking about it. It’s something I don’t take lightly at all.”

Jason Mackey: Jason.Mackey@pirates.com and @JMackey_PGH.