Bourbonnais native, former White Sox prospect Kris Honel rejuvenated by return to the mound

Next week, 615 amateur baseball players will be selected in the MLB draft. Baseball America’s research suggests that just over 100 of them – 17.8%, or 108, to be exact – will play a big league game.

A first-round selection by his hometown White Sox in 2001, Bourbonnais native and former Providence Catholic ace Kris Honel was one of 11 players drafted in the first round that year to never reach the majors.

He pitched his final MLB-affiliated game with the Minnesota Twins during 2009, when he was released on the final day of spring training.

He worked through various independent leagues until 2011, waiting for the next MLB phone call. But because of injuries that began in 2004 – stunting great growth he’d shown on the farm until then – that call never came, prompting his retirement from professional baseball.

Honel never held a grudge with the game nor the teammates he played with, including multiple core pieces of the 2005 White Sox and 2006 and 2011 St. Louis Cardinals World Series championship teams. But he did have to put baseball on the back burner.

“It was really tough,” Honel said. “I was seeing the guys I competed with, dominated on the mound, earning millions of dollars, winning World Series rings. ... For a while I wanted nothing to do with baseball. I was just so burnt out and just tired. It wasn’t resentment-wise, I just needed a break, to move back to town and figure out my identity and life after baseball.”

He came back to Bourbonnais, and except for a couple of years as a volunteer assistant under then-Kankakee Community College baseball coach Todd Post, kept his distance from the game he once loved. But over the past couple of years, he has picked up a ball again as a coach for the Upper Deck Hitters travel team in New Lenox and as a private instructor.

Going straight from high school to a six-figure signing bonus and life in the White Sox system, the now 42-year-old left parts of himself on minor league mounds and alongside the literal and physical roads that never led Honel to the big leagues.

“I missed out on so much right out of high school,” Honel said. “I was on a plane, training, on a bus, in a locker room or on a field for years. I’m a big family guy, so I was ready to reconnect with people and see what else life had to offer.”

As he found the rest of life’s offerings, both his KCC tenure and recent youth-level interactions reminded him that as hard as he tried, for as long as he tried, baseball was still every bit his passion.

After initially meeting Fred LeSage, the manager of the semipro Beecher Muskies, while coaching at KCC, Honel finally decided last summer to take up LeSage on his longstanding offer to join the team.

He made nine appearances out of the bullpen for the 2024 National Amateur Baseball Federation World Series runner-up, finishing 1-0 with a save, a 4.66 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 9⅔ innings. Not bad for someone who hadn’t pitched in a game in 13 years, but not good enough for Honel, something LeSage noticed.

“I think he got his eyes opened about the level of competition he was facing, because some of these guys are pretty good,” LeSage said. “Over the winter this year he talked about doing even more to get prepared, and he’s been so much better.”

Honel has made three starts and a relief appearance this summer. He’s yet to factor into a decision and does have a higher ERA at 5.66 in 11⅓ innings, but aside from allowing five earned runs in one inning of a June 24 start against the Chicago Warriors, Honel has allowed just two earned runs in his other 10⅓ innings and is holding batters to a .227 average.

Whether it’s with the Muskies, through the minors, with the Celtics and even before, there have been two people Honel has had in his corner through it all – Mike and MaryKay Honel. It was Mike, a 1976 Division II All-American at Eastern Illinois, who first put a ball in Honel’s hands. And he’s the one who’s seen him throw it the most.

“He made [darn] sure his kid would get drafted some day,” Honel said. “He and my mom are both very supportive of my dreams. Just seeing him out here getting to watch me in his later years, it’s sentimental. ... It means a lot to have him out here. There were some ups and downs of my career that didn’t affect me, but affected everybody.”