Former Major League Baseball player Tim Costo was named varsity head coach in July 2016. In his six years as head coach, he has led the team to the State's Division II-AA state championship series three times, winning the state title in 2022.
The baseball program competes at the state’s highest level and has advanced to the state championship finals four times since 2007. The Blue Tornado have won three state titles – 1976, 2014 and 2022.
As a collegiate player at the University of Iowa, Coach Costo was a two-time All Big-10 Conference player, a two-time All-American, a member of Team USA, and a Golden Spikes Award nominee given to the nation’s top amateur baseball player. He was drafted in the first round as the eighth overall pick in the 1990 Major League Baseball Draft by the Cleveland Indians and played 10 years of professional baseball.
Since Coach Costo joined McCallie's coaching staff in 2012, the program has claimed the Division II-AA State Championship twice, was state runners up in 2017, and has made the division’s Final Four seven of the past nine years (no state playoffs in 2020).
The varsity coaching staff includes McCallie faculty members Tom Adams '90 and Matt Allen and former Major League pitcher Robert Long. The varsity and junior varsity high school program work and learn together under excellent tutelage. McCallie teacher and coach Chris Richardson leads the junior varsity squad with assistance from Casey Cook ’13, and Dr. David Eastman directs the middle school program.
The newly-renovated and newly-named Kenny Sholl Stadium has seen several improvements in the last year including reconstructed dugouts and a new LED scoreboard. The covered 6,600-square-foot hitting pavilion also received a facelift with new netting in the hitting tunnels, lighting, and weather-proofed fencing surrounding the training area. The Blue Tornado will play on a newly-installed turf infield, the same surface used in many Major League Baseball stadiums.
McCallie's baseball program has produced a number of college signees through the years. Since 1984, 53 McCallie baseball players have continued their baseball playing careers in college, including 27 at the Division I level. The 2022 squad included one NCAA Division I signee at the U.S. Military Academy. Recent graduates from the program have gone on to play at Belmont, East Tennessee State, Middle Tennessee State, and North Carolina.
