Challenges met
Pitt baseball player Connor Perry never took no for an answer.
For every Pitt baseball game he attends — and he has missed only one in the past two seasons — Jim Perry makes his way to the same place at Charles Cost Field. With the first seat of the third row behind home plate, he has what he deems to be the perfect view.
What keeps bringing him to that beloved perch is his grandson, Connor Perry, the Panthers’ standout senior outfielder. There are times when he’s among the only people in the stands, as was the case last year when it snowed during a game early in the season and the younger Perry had members of the grounds crew go over to provide the man he affectionately calls ‘Paps’ with blankets and a dugout jacket. From that seat, he beams with pride.
“He just enjoys playing baseball so much,” Jim Perry said. “It’s a beautiful thing to see.”
That he would be in such a position to watch his grandson play on a regular basis for his hometown university at the highest level of college baseball would have seemed like a dream not even three years ago, not only for how idyllic such a thought was, but because of how unattainable it felt.
Now, it’s refreshingly real. A player who was cut by a Division II program about 40 months ago is now among the best players on Pitt’s team, hitting .298 with a team-high 10 home runs through the first 39 games, and is among the ACC leaders in several statistical categories. A college career defined by its obstacles and setbacks is reaching a conclusion that, on its surface, is unexpected. But once one begins to understand the figure at the center of it and what he navigated along the way, it makes perfect sense.
“I’m happy everything worked out the way it did,” Perry, a Norwin graduate, said. “Without any of that happening, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I don’t know where I’d be. Everything that did happen in the past and all the letdowns and the failures, it made me who I am today.
“There’s always a chip on my shoulder no matter what. I’ve had more people tell me I couldn’t do it than I could. That’s something that has always built up inside of me.”
His current production is on the far more desirable end of a high-wire act for seniors,, who feel a sense of urgency with their college careers winding down. That urgency sometimes overwhelms or stifles them. More than anything, those impressive numbers are the product of a journey in which each step was harder earned than the one before it..
It began as far back as eighth grade, when he was cut from his school’s freshman team (made up of both eighth and ninth graders), a moment he described as “kind of the first slap in the face I got.” He moved on from that, earning allWPIAL honors and helping lead Norwin to the WPIAL championship game as a senior. Perry longed for a chance to continue his career in college and got that with Lock Haven, a Division II school in central Pennsylvania.
It was there that more setbacks arrived. As he neared the end of his first semester in 2015, Perry learned he had been cut from the team. When he committed to the program while still in high school, he believed he had found a home for the next four years, a place where he could blossom as a player.
“That coach made the right decision on what he did with me because I wasn’t good enough,” Perry said. “I needed that.”
In the days that followed, Perry considered quitting baseball altogether, noting he was “done with” it. While dealing with that vulnerability, he talked to his grandfather, his perpetual source of encouragement, who told him he would be crazy to do so, that he had too much unfulfilled potential to simply abandon.
Shortly after that conversation, Perry received a call from Bruce Thompson, then in his first season as the baseball coach at Lackawanna Community College. Thompson had reached out to Jim Chester, Lock Haven’s coach at the time, who spoke highly of Perry. He invited Perry to make the five-hour drive to Scranton to visit the school, which he did with his grandfather, navigating their way through a torrential downpour. Once there, both coach and player realized they had found a mutually beneficial situation.
“Right away, I was like ‘This is the type of kid we want in our program,’ “ Thompson said. “He was not upset, but disappointed with the way things happened [at Lock Haven] and was eager for a fresh start and wasn’t sure what to do. I told him that we could offer that to him. He could have a clean slate and start over.”
At Lackawanna, Perry made the most of that opportunity, rededicating himself to a game he very nearly left behind. He would show up to practices early to hit. He worked for hours in the cage with Thompson, who would videotape his player’s swing and analyze it with him. With the Scranton RailRiders, the New York Yankees’ Class AAA affiliate, close by, he hung around their games and developed a connection with Slade Heathcott, a former first-round pick, as well as future major-league stars Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez.
“If he fails, he knows he’s going to keep working and, eventually, he’s going to succeed,” Thompson said. “He’s relentless. He will not stop. He’s the most driven player I’ve ever coached. I’m in my ninth season coaching and I’ve never met someone who was more driven or hungry to prove people wrong or be successful.”
That tireless work ethic allowed him to flourish in the junior-college ranks, as he was an all-region selection in each of his two seasons at Lackawanna. It attracted the eye of college recruiters, as well, including Pitt and then-head coach Joe Jordano, who offered Perry their lone remaining scholarship for the 2018 season.
At what amounted to a destination, at least at the college level, there were still obstacles that needed to be cleared and difficulties to be overcome. As a junior last season, Perry struggled with the adjustment to the ACC, hitting just .190 with no home runs and only nine RBIs, even as a regular starter. Something, as he saw it, had to change.
Over the offseason, he spent time in Florida, where his family now lives, training daily with his younger brother, Dylan, a high school sophomore. Together, they pushed one another, whether it was on the field or in the cage. Once Perry got back to campus, that grind continued, one that came with a new mental approach with every atbat that was cultivated partially by new Panthers coach Mike Bell, himself a former junior-college player.
With those changes have come results. Perry has added some much-needed oomph to the heart of the Panthers’ lineup, with six more home runs than his next-closest teammate and a team-best slugging percentage of .574, with his 10 home runs ranking him sixth among ACC players as of April 24. That power has been aptly complemented by speed, with a team-leading 10 stolen bases (on 11 attempts) and the kind of burst Jim Perry said has caused scouts’ eyes to pop open when they time him.
His improvement has made something that was once far out of reach a possibility — a pro career.
“The guys that can do that and continue to stay healthy, they’ll move up through systems,” Bell said. “The guys that falter off, it’s because the strikeouts take over, the on-base percentage goes down and then you’ve got the new, upand-coming rookie coming up behind you.
“You’ve got to set yourself apart. If he can continue that balance of speed and power and cut down the strikeouts, there’s no doubt he could move through somebody’s system.”
Perry is too invested in the present to peer too far into the future, with more than two weeks remaining in the regular season. One of those games, a May 14 matchup against West Virginia at PNC Park, will carry a special significance. Growing up, Perry would regularly go to games with his grandfather, who for decades was in charge of ushers and ticket-takers for the Pirates. With each visit would come a message.
“As a youngster, he’d always say ‘Pap, some day, you’re going to see me play on this field,’” Jim Perry said. “I’d say ‘Boy, that would be wonderful.’ He’s going to get that shot this year. I’ll be able to see him play on that field. Someday, potentially, hopefully as a professional.”
If Connor Perry has proven anything in his career, it’s that it would be unwise to bet against it.
“I’ve had more people tell me I couldn’t do it than I could. That’s something that has always built up inside of me.” Connor Perry