The first question that Tony Vitello, new manager of the San Francisco Giants, was dealt when he stepped into the box with Major League Baseball media? It had to do with his lack of big-league experience.

“We didn’t waste any time,” Vitello quipped to reporters at that Oct. 30 introductory press conference in San Francisco. “We got to the first question that everyone was maybe thinking and should ask. It is very different (in college).”

Yeah, Tennessee baseball‘s departed coach saw that first pitch coming.

But a later question, while riffing on the same theme, was more of a curveball for him. It got a more revealing response, too, because it seemed to get Vitello’s dander up a bit. That later question was about earning respect from MLB players who value the concept of paying dues by riding buses in the minors. Vitello, obviously, hasn’t done that.

“I am very sensitive,” Vitello replied, “with all due respect, to the phrase, ‘Pay your dues.’ ”

Vitello’s answer referenced, in his uniquely roundabout way, what it’s like to work through the ranks as a college coach and a recruiter. Specifically, he shouted out East Carolina’s Cliff Godwin, who coached pitcher Trey Yesavage, only 22 and already a World Series hero for the Toronto Blue Jays.

“It’s a lot of lonely nights in a hotel,” Vitello said of college coaching. “And it’s a lot of phone calls, and it’s a lot of text messages. It’s hearing ‘No’ just as much as maybe an insurance salesman or whoever else.”

He then stuck the landing …

“So (my) dues have come in a different way. Hopefully, respect will be earned in different ways.”

It felt like a polite, introductory ground rule from Vitello to those he’ll be working with daily in the Bay Area:

College coaching is absolutely different, but let’s not think it’s inferior.

Such a sentiment was more necessary than it ever would’ve been in, say, football or basketball. The NFL lured both Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier out of the SEC for the NFL, and Billy Donovan was a title-winning Florida legend before he went to the NBA, much like his own college coach Rick Pitino years before. This sort of move has happened before.

Just not in baseball.

What Vitello just did, leaving UT to become the Giants manager without coaching in the pros before, was unprecedented. It was revolutionary, in a baseball sense, given how long those entrenched in MLB have instinctively turned noses up at the college game, what with its aluminum bats and thin pitching and high scores. In the MLB’s view, college is where players go for a few years when they aren’t good enough to sign directly out of high school.

College baseball also hasn’t enjoyed traditional popularity like college football or men’s basketball. But there’s no better example than Vitello’s Tennessee program of how rapidly that can change and how much potential – and big-league-ready talent – now exists in top college programs.

That’s why, from a coaching standpoint, a move like this from the college ranks was overdue.

Giants general manager Zack Minasian commented at the press conference that this hire wasn’t as out of the box as it appears, since Vitello’s name had been out there in MLB circles for a while.

Surely, it wasn’t just Vitello, either. A strong case, for instance, could’ve been made over the years for Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin. He could’ve pursued opportunities at the Major League level. Plenty of other college coaches could’ve been where Vitello now sits.

But Vitello did it. He made the move, and as a result, he’s no longer just representing the Vols. He’s carrying a banner for all of college baseball, uniquely positioned to earn respect while carrying a great deal of responsibility.

Vitello’s success in San Francisco could create opportunity for countless others in the future. In turn, his failing could validate critics and deter other MLB clubs from taking the risk the Giants took with him.

“I wouldn’t vote myself to be the pioneer of college baseball,” Vitello told reporters, “but I think one thing that can come out of this is it’d be one step further of the two kind of melting together, and MLB supporting college baseball and doing things for it, and college baseball interacting with MLB.

“Seeing how those two things can kind of bridge together, I think, can be very, very beneficial to the game.”

He’s officially San Francisco’s now, and as we say goodbye and wish Vitello good luck in his new adventure, something tells me that he’s still going to sound an awful lot like a college baseball guy.

That’s because, at heart, he’s still going to be one.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social