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" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.michigandaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/online_jmw.BBL_.vsBradley.3.17.23.0028.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.michigandaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/online_jmw.BBL_.vsBradley.3.17.23.0028.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1" /> With a win almost certainly in hand as the Michigan baseball team led Penn State 13-3 in the eighth inning of its Big Ten opener on March 24, Connor O’Halloran was beginning to wear down on the mound.
So when Wolverines coach Tracy Smith came out to take the ball from the junior left-hander after letting a run score and putting runners on first and second, the end of O’Halloran’s day seemed imminent.
But it wasn’t.
O’Halloran wouldn’t let it be.
“He was like, ‘I want to keep the game because those are my runs out there,’ ” Smith said March 24.
And O’Halloran’s unwillingness to give up the ball worked, as Smith let his ace remain in the game.
After allowing one more run to come in, O’Halloran got two Nittany Lions to fly out to finish off the eighth — demonstrating the competitive spirit that was fostered from a young age.
***
Connor O’Halloran was born into a quintessential tight-knit sports family in the Toronto suburbs. Normal dinner times for the O’Halloran family were 9:30 or 10:00 at night, after long evenings of bouncing around between sports practices.
Connor’s father, Greg, played collegiate baseball at Orange Coast College before scouting and coaching in the World Baseball Classic for Team Canada in 2006 and 2009. Both of Connor’s older siblings, Ryan and Maggie, also grew up actively playing sports.
But even though his father held the baseball lineage of the family, Connor’s mother, Sheryl, actually introduced Connor and Ryan to baseball.
“It was every day, when I came home, they were playing some baseball game in the court,” Greg told The Michigan Daily. “And we had probably 10 or 11 kids who were all the same age of the 10 houses over there. (Connor and Ryan) were teaching everybody how to play and Sheryl would play catch with them every day.”
After those first mini-games on the concrete cul de sac, Greg took over the coaching reins for Connor and Ryan’s early baseball teams. Although he lightheartedly characterized coaching those early tee-ball teams as “one of the most painful things ever,” his children became fully immersed in the sport.
Connor then seized that love and made it his own. He started as the bat boy for Ryan’s games, and when he was finally old enough to be on the field, he played up an age group due to his rapidly-advancing level of play.
“I said, ‘Those guys over there, that’s your age group,’ ” Greg said. “He’s like ‘I’m not playing there, I’m going to play with these guys.’ ”
And despite being younger than all of his teammates, Connor would insist on playing with the older guys — and it paid off. As his game developed, Connor adopted the full baseball persona — eye black, wristbands and sleeping with his glove under his bed — to a point of near-insanity.
At one of Ryan’s youth baseball games, Connor was playing catch with other kids while watching the contest. Standing near left field, a pop fly in Ryan’s game went awry, smashing Connor right in the face and breaking his nose. Still, Connor’s mind immediately went to baseball.
“It breaks his nose, everything,” Maggie said. “And there’s blood, and then the ambulance has to come and he’s crying. My mom was like ‘Oh my gosh, don’t worry, you’ll be okay.’ He was like, ‘I don’t know if I can pitch next week!’ ”
Even in the scariest moments, Connor remained focused on baseball, which made it an easy choice for him to pursue club baseball teams over hockey and volleyball — the other sports he played growing up.
While it came naturally for Connor, the decision to pursue something other than hockey was shocking to others in Canada. Many of his friends were hockey-oriented, but Connor remained focused on chasing his baseball dreams.
“When Connor and Ryan both switched to baseball, everyone was like, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Maggie said.
That commitment to baseball slowly but surely paid off. With limited organized high school sports in Canada, club teams are the primary way of getting meaningful competition and broader recruitment exposure.
As a result, Connor joined Terriers Baseball around age 15, led by coach Rick Johnston. The Terriers play in a domestic travel league and also take summer trips to the United States to mix up the competition. When Johnston first met Connor, he remembers the teenager having a big smile on his face, a sign of his “happy-go-lucky” attitude.
In the middle of the diamond, Johnston oversaw the development of Connor’s game as he faced increasingly strong competition each year. He recognized how Connor’s innate competitive fire and level-headedness helped him flourish and continue developing as a pitcher.
“You could see every day, a layer got peeled off and maturity came out of every layer,” Johnston told The Daily. “And good, bad or indifferent, when he pitched, he would battle like no tomorrow. His compete level was off the charts. I think that goes hand-in-hand with his maturing really young.”
These attributes drew interest from Greg Hamilton, Director of National Teams and head coach of the Junior National Team in Canada. Connor was selected for the Canada U-18 National Team in 2018, presenting him the opportunity to represent his country in competitions like the U-18 World Cup Qualifiers in Panama and the U-18 World Cup in South Korea.
“It was probably some of the most fun baseball I’ve ever played in my life,” Connor said. “We got to travel everywhere. We got to play pro players. … You get to judge yourself against other top-tier players within your country that you almost didn’t even know existed before.”
With each outing, Connor increasingly gleaned information about the game of baseball and how he could improve his game.
But no outing was more humbling for him than a start against a New York Yankees minor league affiliate team at age 16. Connor learned the hard way that you cannot throw the ball down the middle of the plate to experienced batters, as he let up back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs.
Through the struggles, however, outsiders saw positives in Connor’s performance that day.
“A scout said, ‘That’s one of the best games I saw Connor play,’ ” Sheryl said. “I was like ‘you sure about that?’ (Connor) learned real quick.”
These teachable moments began to serve Connor well as he attended various events in the U.S. to gain recruitment exposure. The O’Halloran family traveled nine hours to Indianapolis for an invite-only Prep Baseball Report (PBR) event, where Connor pitched for Team Ontario against Team Michigan.
After pitching the first three innings, Connor immediately drew the eye of former Michigan pitching coach Chris Fetter. While Fetter was originally there to scout out the Michiganders, he couldn’t help but be impressed with the Canadian’s outing and invited him on a recruiting visit.
And Connor quickly seized the opportunity.
“When I heard that (Fetter) wanted to talk, I just jumped at the chance just because U-M is pretty close to Canada,” Connor said. “You hear a lot about the football and basketball, so that excited me.”
However, the ensuing visit was not Connor’s first time on Michigan’s campus. As a sophomore in high school, Connor played a baseball tournament at Pioneer High School, a mere block from Michigan Stadium. During the trip, Greg asked the team’s bus driver to pass by the campus so Connor and his teammates could see Yost Ice Arena and Ray Fisher Stadium.
“I said, ‘This is one of the greatest universities in the United States,’ ” Greg said. “And I said, there’s the baseball field right over there. Maybe someday, one of you might be able to be on that team, and Connor told me, ‘That’s gonna be me.’ ”
So when offered a scholarship by former Wolverines coach Erik Bakich in 2018, Connor immediately canceled all of his other visits.
After convincing Connor that he should play for him at Michigan, Bakich then turned the tables and asked Connor why he should be accepted into the university. Connor replied with an impassioned, heartwarming answer, emphasizing his intangibles in being a good teammate and his desire to win for the Wolverines.
“We were all very emotional,” Sheryl said.
As Connor eagerly accepted Bakich’s offer and embarked on his freshman year, COVID-19 combined with his mother’s breast cancer diagnosis threw a wrench into his plans.
“Dealing with (Sheryl’s breast cancer diagnosis) and then going to college at the same time was definitely a lot,” Connor said. “… It was the time that you wanted to be with her because she’s going through that. But she also understood that I had started this chapter in going to school.”
Amid these compounding factors, Bakich gave Connor alternative options to play baseball elsewhere for the year. However, Connor chose to prioritize starting that chapter of his career by playing college baseball at Michigan — while keeping close tabs on his mother’s health. Sheryl is now cancer-free.
With the Wolverines, Connor has blossomed, even with the coaching change after last season. He never contemplated transferring. After pitching just 6.2 total innings his entire freshman season, Connor’s individual starts this season now frequently last longer than that — sporting a Big Ten-leading 2.85 ERA as of May 4. On April 22 against Michigan State, Connor notched his first career complete game, once again showcasing his development on the mound.
“When he was younger, he wasn’t the hardest thrower,” Hamilton said. “I think today, he’s still probably not the hardest thrower, but he really knows how to pitch and really understands how to get hitters out. It’s obviously an attribute or skill set that will serve you well, especially from the left side.”
Even as the results and accolades pile up — highlighted by a recent ranking as the ninth-best college left-handed pitcher for the 2023 MLB Draft by Perfect Game — Connor remains a quiet leader in the locker room, more often choosing to lead by example.
“I just hope that people remember me personally as a good teammate and a guy that they love playing with, (and) have good memories with on and off the field,” Connor said.
***
A 10-run game in late March may seem rather unimportant for a starting pitcher remaining in the game. But it was for Connor O’Halloran.
“I wanted to shut this down myself,” O’Halloran said of his mindset in that Penn State game. “I want to get out of his own jam that I created for myself.”
This season for Michigan, O’Halloran has been the shut-down starter of the Big Ten, rarely having to work through jams while rising up draft boards.
His casual 10th-grade declaration of one day leading the Michigan baseball team has come to fruition, leading the charge as the Wolverines chase the Big Ten crown — thanks to his competitive spirit and passion for the game.
“That’s gonna be me” has truly come full circle.