After tragedy hit, Alex McFarlane lived with his former teachers in Georgia. Now he faces their favorite team
The Elgers and the Akridges will be watching closely from opposite corners of the world, as the Phillies rookie pitches against their favorite team. But they won’t waver in their support of him.
The island of St. Thomas and the city of Cornelia, Ga., seem different in almost every conceivable way. One is surrounded by the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea; the other, tucked into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
One has yearlong heat and humidity; the other has four seasons. But the two communities, roughly 1,600 miles apart, share an unlikely similarity. Both played a role in Alex McFarlane’s journey to the Phillies.
McFarlane was born and raised on the eastern side of St. Thomas. It was hardly a baseball hotbed; only 16 of the sport’s 23,804 big leaguers have come from the Virgin Islands. Nevertheless, word of his athleticism — and arm — spread quickly.
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There were early signs. As a boy, the future Phillies reliever would spend his days with a milk carton full of tennis balls, fooling around with different grips, and throwing them against the side of his garage.
His mother, Tami Noel, had to get the siding replaced because of the dents imprinted by her hard-throwing son. “He beat the crap out of it,” said McFarlane’s former math teacher, Liz Elger.
In the seventh grade, during a dodge ball game, McFarlane accidentally beaned a classmate in the head. Of course, he was not the only culprit. Plenty of other middle schoolers were slinging red projectiles across the gym.
But none were slinging with the force McFarlane was. And the kid who got hit looked “dazed,” according to Elger’s husband, Joey, who taught the future big leaguer P.E. and history.
“It wasn’t like a concussion,” he said, “but we had to go to softer balls.”
When he was 15, one of McFarlane’s coaches in St. Thomas connected him with Team Elite, a travel team out of Georgia. Up until that point, he’d only played recreational baseball; high school baseball didn’t exist at his academy.
Team Elite provided plenty of exposure (he committed to the University of Miami his junior year) but also had its limitations. McFarlane couldn’t experience the ups and downs of a full season. Their program was more about development and garnering scouts’ attention than winning a championship.
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High school baseball was where most players learned this side of the game. But it was never an option for McFarlane, until tragedy struck his hometown. In September of 2017, two Category 5 storms, Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria, hit the Caribbean.
St. Thomas was destroyed. It took over 100 days to fully restore power. The island was crowded with trucks, helicopters and military equipment. The already-limited athletic facilities were being used as staging grounds for FEMA.
Liz Elger moved back to her hometown of Cornelia, Ga., with her young daughters, while her husband helped with relief efforts. McFarlane stayed with his family, making sure they were settled.
In 2018, the pitcher decided to take a risk. He was about to embark on his senior year, but would have little access to baseball or physical training on the island, due to disaster recovery efforts.
So, his mom reached out to the Elgers and asked if her son could stay with them. McFarlane moved to northeast Georgia that fall, living with Atlanta Braves fans, while playing for Habersham Central High School.
And this week, McFarlane, a 25-year-old rookie who has emerged as a trusted reliever for the Phillies, will face their favorite team in the National League wild-card series, 80 miles south of the mountain town he once called home.
“A huge credit to them for taking me in, and helping me out,” McFarlane said. “It’s something that I’m forever grateful for.”
A ballplayer who could do it all
The Elgers have worked as international educators for the past 16 years. They’ve taught everywhere from Saipan to Lithuania to Tanzania, where they’re based now.
But before they traversed the globe, Liz and Joey were two Habersham students who loved the Braves. This was especially true for Joey, a bat boy for the team in the 1980s.
He was a baseball broadcaster for Stanford throughout college, and an intern at the Baseball Hall of Fame after graduating, but eventually returned to Habersham with Liz in 2005 to accept their first teaching jobs.
When the couple moved to St. Thomas in 2012 to work at the VI Montessori School & Peter Gruber International Academy, they found a community that was just as tight-knit as Cornelia.
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The school’s principal called it a “three-legged stool.” Because the academy was small, with only 400 students from pre-K to 12th grade, it had a strong sense of cohesion. Parents and teachers would often see each other socially.
This is how the couple got to know Noel, a small-business owner on the island.
McFarlane was not the first St. Thomas athlete the Elgers took in. In 2017, Liz was contacted by the mother of two aspiring soccer players, Quinn and Grant Farrell, who asked if they could stay with her in Georgia.
Grant spent his senior year playing for Habersham, and soon secured an athletic scholarship at Division II Emmanuel University, in nearby Franklin Springs, Ga. The high school’s baseball coach, Chris Akridge, took notice.
“Chris was kind of teasing us,” Joey said. “‘Do you know any baseball players?’”
As it turns out, they did. By the fall of 2018, McFarlane was at Habersham’s workouts. To Akridge, the timing was almost too good to be true.
The Raiders had only secured one playoff berth in their last 50 years. They’d recorded only one winning season in their last six. All of a sudden, Habersham had a player who could do it all: hit leadoff, roam center field, and start every seven days.
McFarlane led his team in all offensive categories, batting .480 with a .570 on-base percentage, and a 1.270 OPS. He led (or tied) his team in all pitching categories as well, posting a 1.80 ERA with 68 strikeouts and a 1.074 WHIP across 10 starts.
Even as a teenager, he emanated the toughness he’d later show as a Phillie. Akridge remembers one outing, against Appalachee High School, when McFarlane gave up a cheap home run to an eight-hole hitter in the third.
At first, he looked rattled. Then he settled in, and threw a complete game in a comeback victory. The next day, McFarlane approached his coach at school.
“He said, ‘You know, coach, that was awesome,’” Akridge recalled. “‘I’ve never experienced anything like that.’”
Joey and Liz and their daughters, Grady and Niall, attended every game, often FaceTiming Noel so she could see her son pitch. They quickly realized that they were not alone.
» READ MORE: Phillies rookie Alex McFarlane carries his hometown in the U.S. Virgin Islands with him
When McFarlane took the mound, scouts flocked to Habersham; usually 20 to 25 of them, leaning against the fence and crowding in the stands. They began to visit the Elgers’ home, talking to the prospect at their living room table.
Because Noel was back in St. Thomas, Joey and Liz supervised these visits. This led to some interesting encounters. One afternoon, former Braves infielder Keith Lockhart showed up to their door.
He was scouting for the Chicago Cubs. Liz asked the former big leaguer if he wanted any water, and went to the kitchen to grab a cup. The one she chose happened to be a giveaway from the 2001 NLDS, when Lockhart was on the Braves’ roster.
“It was a plastic cup, and he was on there,” she said, laughing. “It was a picture of their celebration after they won.”
Scouts would often ask McFarlane who his favorite player was growing up. The young pitcher didn’t hesitate, and as a Braves fan, Joey never forgot his answer.
“Chris Sale,” he recalled. “And I remember him mentioning his approach as much as anything. He said that he just had such even keel out there. Watching him, he never felt like he was out of control.”
From Braves fans to Phillies fans
After McFarlane graduated from Habersham in 2019, and attended Miami, the Elgers moved to Lithuania for another teaching assignment.
They still managed to keep track of their favorite pitcher though, sending texts after his outings, and catching the occasional minor league game whenever they were back in the United States.
In the summer of 2025, they drove 10 hours from Georgia to Aberdeen, Md., to watch McFarlane pitch for single-A Jersey Shore. His game was rained out, so they found a Caribbean restaurant nearby and reminisced over dinner.
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The family stayed for his game the following night, before flying to Tanzania, where they now live. They have become somewhat accustomed to seeing McFarlane in a baseball uniform, but what he’s done for the Phillies has been surreal to them.
And the Elgers have seen real growth in his demeanor. Joey pointed to the home run McFarlane gave up to the Braves’ Ronald Acuña on Sept. 6 as an example.
“When he started pitching in the Phillies organization, we noticed that the stuff that had just happened [in the game] was gone,” Elger said. “And he really was able to reset himself. I think probably three or four years before, if that Acuña home run had happened, we would have tensed up, ourselves.”
Now, not so much. McFarlane had one of his best outings of the season just over a week later, when he struck out the Mets’ Juan Soto on three fastballs. Elger woke up in East Africa to a slew of text messages from family and friends.
He had to watch the video twice to believe it. So did Akridge, who sent the clip to his entire coaching staff.
“It’s crazy that seven years later, here he is, blowing the ball by Juan Soto,” Akridge said. “It’s amazing.”
The Elger and the Akridge families will be watching closely on Tuesday night, from opposite corners of the world, as McFarlane goes up against their favorite team (and his favorite pitcher).
But they won’t waver in their support. Even if it comes at the expense of the Braves.
“We will be rooting for the Phillies with all of our hearts,” Liz said.
Let's talk about the Phillies' bullpen. Larry Andersen happens to be an expert on the subject. The popular Phillies radio analyst had a 17-year major-league career in which he appeared in 699 games – all but one in relief. He joins Phillies Extra to break down the biggest question standing between the Phillies and a long run through October: How will they bridge the gap to closer Jhoan Duran? Watch here.
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