Vols hope leading lefty Chris Stamos will help script a Hollywood ending (2024)

The Directors Guild of America packaging meant an immediate movie night at the Stamos residence, but with rewinding and note-taking instead of relaxing and popcorn eating, with Mom and Dad but no children on the invite list.

Such was life in a show business home in Pasadena, Calif., a family involved in acting, directing, producing and voting for the best of all of it. But the youngest of two Stamos boys found a way in as the opening credits of the 2012 film “Zero Dark Thirty” — on the Navy SEAL mission to kill Osama bin Laden — played across the TV screen.

“’Hey, this is historical knowledge, important to our country,’” Chris, then 12, said to parents Nick and Connie. “That got me a seat at the table. Or a seat on the couch, I guess.”

Chris Stamos never had the show biz bug, but he had those powers of persuasion early. Around the same time, he accidentally left his homework in a locked classroom at school one day, so he went to the headmaster’s office and asked for the key. And got it. When he believed he was good enough to be a Division I pitcher after two seasons in Division III and a year off, he enrolled at Cal-Berkeley, got coach Mike Neu’s number and texted him.

“I was like, ‘Dude, you have two left-handed pitchers on your roster and I’m a lefty and throw 90 at least,’” Stamos said. “’We should be friends.’”

It worked. After two seasons with the Golden Bears and the 2023 earning of a degree in media, law and policy, so did getting into the transfer portal. The idea for the 6-foot-4, 209-pound lefty, now armed with a fastball in the low 90s and a complete repertoire, was to attract the interest of an elite program. Stamos wanted a chance at a national championship and the developmental benefits of a program that churns out pro prospects.

The door cracked open on those pursuits when Tennessee assistant coach Richard Jackson sent him a message. Stamos had just watched the Vols in the College World Series and knew the lofty reputation of UT pitching coach Frank Anderson. The Vols needed lefties, too. He got on the phone with head coach Tony Vitello.

Both sides were sold. Stamos became a late add in August. And he’s in line to throw the first Tennessee pitch of the Knoxville Super Regional that starts Friday at Lindsey Nelson Stadium against Evansville — then again in Omaha if the Vols return there as they are heavily favored to do.

“It’s amazing how things work out,” said Anderson, who had to come up with an alternative after sophom*ore fireballer AJ Russell was shut down with arm soreness in March — an injury Vitello confirmed Wednesday will likely end Russell’s season.

Tennessee eventually found a winning Friday formula with Stamos (3-0, 3.60 ERA, .184 batting average against) opening and Jacksonville State transfer and submarining right-hander AJ Causey following up to give hitters a very different look. The Vols, seeded No. 1 overall in this tournament, have a power-packed lineup, an ace starter in Drew Beam and a fleet of bullpen arms for Anderson to deploy as needed. That’s unlike previous Vitello teams that were rich with starting arms, but so far it has not stopped this team from charging toward the program’s first national title.

“It’s different,” Anderson said of a staff that has a collective ERA of 3.80, good for third nationally. “But it’s also kind of fun. I mean, you’ve got 10 or 11 guys on the staff that when they come to the field every day, outside of a couple, you might have a chance to pitch that day. Sometimes you just have to get creative.”

That’s a staple of the Stamos family (no relation to actor John “Uncle Jesse” Stamos, a fact that Vitello addressed earlier in the season). Nick and Connie met when Nick directed her in a play at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles. She was a UC Santa Barbara graduate who started out as an actor but found that her “business brain” pushed her toward producing.

He was a former actor, too, who had moved from Greece to New York as a young man to try to make it on Broadway, then eventually shifted to directing, producing and California. His TV directing credits include episodes of “WKRP in Cincinnati” and “Santa Barbara.” She joined Disney to become a producer, starting as a production accountant, and traveling on set for a variety of films.

Her last would be Adam Sandler’s “Waterboy,” because their oldest son, Alex, was a baby and a stable schedule became a priority. Connie stayed on the accounting side at Disney and started a career there of more than 30 years. Nick stayed in TV and film production. Alex and Chris grew up in Pasadena and shared a love of baseball, their father driving them as far as necessary for practices and travel games as long as they displayed the passion and work ethic their parents instilled in them.

“He would watch old black and white movies, put them on mute, no sound, and just study the lighting, the cinematography,” Chris said of his father. “I’m like, ‘This guy’s a unicorn.’”

Alex was good enough to take baseball to Division III Principia College in Elsah, Ill. Chris was a standout at St. Francis High in La Canada, Calif., but baseball became all but irrelevant his junior year. That started with Nick Stamos’ tragic and sudden passing, of a heart attack in his sleep.

“That flipped our whole world, obviously,” Connie said.

Chris was on a Boy Scouts trip at the time and Connie had to pick him up and break the news to him on the drive home. He got out and walked the last couple of miles to process the news.

“You’ve got this invincible dad your whole life, and then he’s gone,” Stamos said. “In the grand scheme of things, I had 16 years with my dad, which is a lot better than a lot of other people have. Eventually, you find a way to be grateful. But that year, to be honest, I stopped caring about most things, you know? Including baseball. I was just kind of existing.”

It didn’t help that Stamos got hit in the face with a ball, causing a concussion, to go with wrist and thumb injuries that junior season.

“There was a game where he was pitching and it was raining on the mound — only on the mound,” Connie said. “It was like, ‘What else can happen to this kid?’ At that point he’s like, ‘I’m done, I’m done.’”

Two long phone calls with Alex, as the family got through their grief together, convinced Stamos to return to the game as a high school senior. Some recruiting opportunities had been lost, but Principia was interested. The brothers played one season together before Alex moved on to the real world and a job with Amazon.

“Just an amazing experience,” Stamos said, and from there the build toward key performer for a national championship contender with professional aspirations was underway. Academic excellence — a must in the Stamos household — has marked the journey as well, which explains how Stamos had a chance to walk on at Berkeley in the first place. On Wednesday he was named Academic All-District and carries a 4.0 grade-point average in his graduate classes.

He’s a role player on a team full of them, a guy who has a modest NIL deal with The Volunteer Club that pays his rent, but who pays for his own tuition. He’s also an instant difference-maker for a program he said he picked over Florida and others because “it’s so selfless and unique, and that all starts with coach Vitello.”

“You bring people from all over the country into a team unit, and you never know for sure what you’re gonna get,” Anderson said. “The thing with Chris is, what enamors you to the kid is his personality, how much of a team guy he is. He’s one of those guys everybody pulls for.”

Stamos had a briefer-than-usual NCAA Tournament debut, one out recorded and two hits allowed before Vitello went with Causey to handle most of the work in a win over Northern Kentucky. That followed Stamos’ 3 1/3 innings of one-hit ball against Texas A&M on May 23 in the SEC Tournament, an outing that got the Vols rolling out of the losers bracket toward the title.

“He looked like a pro out there,” Vitello said of Stamos after that outing, and though Stamos may have wanted it to last longer, his persuasiveness has limits. His background lends perspective and extensive knowledge on one topic in particular.

“This staff has been used differently and done things differently, but they’re all very willing to do whatever you ask them to do, including hand you the ball,” Vitello told reporters that night. “(Stamos) wanted to talk to me about the movie ‘Tombstone’ out there when I took the ball from his hand.”

(Top photo: Vasha Hunt / USA Today)

Joe Rexrode is a senior staff writer for The Athletic covering all things Nashville and some things outside Nashville. He previously worked at The Tennessean, the Detroit Free Press and the Lansing State Journal, spending the past three years as sports columnist at The Tennessean. Follow Joe on Twitter @joerexrode