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Covenant Health Park to host Tennessee Fall World Series game

On3 imageby: Eric Cain3 hours ago_Cainer
Manny Marin, Tennessee Baseball | Tennessee Athletics
Manny Marin, Tennessee Baseball | Tennessee Athletics

Tennessee baseball is in a bit of a holding pattern in regards to who will be the program’s next head coach, but the show goes on for fall practice and the current players. With that, Covenant Health Park announced on Friday that it will host one of Tennessee’s Fall World Series games in early November.

The Vols will play at the Chicago Cubs AA affiliate Knoxville Smokies ballpark on November 9 with first pitch slated for 1 p.m. ET. Gates will open at 11:30 a.m. ET and tickets to the event are being sold now.     

It is unclear what the plans are for the rest of the Tennessee Fall World Series and for when and where those games will be played.  

Tennessee began the fall practice window on September 25 and has already made a trip to Chattanooga’s AT&T Field on October 4. The Vols are scheduled to be in Nashville on Sunday for an intrasquad at First Horizon Ballpark.  

Former Tennessee coach Tony Vitello made history this week accepting the managerial position for the San Francisco Giants, becoming the first sitting college coach with no prior professional playing or coaching experience to be named manager.

Vitello logged a 341-131 record while at Tennessee in eight seasons at the helm. He leaves Tennessee as the third-winningest head coach in program history, behind Rod Delmonico (699-396 in 18 seasons) and Bill Wright (408, 308-2 in 19 seasons). His .722 winning percentage is the best in school history.

Under Vitello’s leadership, Tennessee baseball secured the first national championship in program history in 2024 and made three trips to the College World Series in total. Tennessee amassed five-straight super regional appearances from 2021-2025 and made the postseason tournament in six of the seven seasons there was postseason play (2020 no tournament due to COVID) during his stint.     

Vitello won the Southeastern Conference regular season twice (2022, 2024), the conference tournament twice (2022, 2024) and the SEC Eastern Division three times (2021, 2022, 2024) before the conference shifted away from divisions prior to the 2025 campaign.

The skipper was named SEC Coach of the Year in 2022 and was a two-time Perfect Game Coach of the Year (2021, 2022). Vitello also reeled in Coach of the Year honors from the NCBWA (2021) and ABCA (2024).