Sean Reilly, ‘the Crash Davis of Intercounty Baseball,’ seeks elusive second league title

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When he stands in the batter’s box, Sean Reilly cuts the perfect figure of a slugger.

Big, wide, powerful … all the classic characteristics of a sultan of swat, just like Babe Ruth, but from the right-handed side.

Reilly is the Intercounty Baseball League’s all-time leader in homers (204), hits (1,007), RBIs (812) and doubles (161), while ranking second in games played (780, behind London’s Arden Eddie at 846).

Now Reilly is looking to make more history, with his Toronto Maple Leafs playing in the best-of-five championship series against the London Majors — who took the opener 4-3 on Friday night. Game 2 starts at 2 p.m. Sunday, at Dominico Field at Christie Pits in Toronto.

Reilly is going for something that has eluded him since 2004: an IBL championship.

“I’ve been to five of them and won one,” Reilly, in his 25th season, told the Star this week.

Some call Reilly the “Babe Ruth of the Intercounty league” or the “Crash Davis of the IBL,” referring to Kevin Costner’s character in “Bull Durham.” Reilly is a bit more than that, given that he — like many players in the league — also holds down a steady job. The 44-year-old is a Toronto firefighter who lives in Guelph.

As the father of nine-year-old son Aiden and five-year-old daughter Ryenn, Reilly and his wife Lauren also hustle their son to baseball games, and now hockey tryouts.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without my family. They have had to make a lot of sacrifices,” Reilly said.

“Playing all these years, and I’ve know Lauren for 15 years now, I said you better know what you are getting in to, because we’ll have a lot of friends going away to cottages and on trips, but we’ll be driving to Stratford on a Sunday night and you’ll probably be riding shotgun beside me.”

A native of Hamilton, Reilly is a self-made slugger who entered the IBL in 1997, following a stint in the Minnesota Twins organization.

Reilly wasn’t even dreaming of hitting records back then. He’d been drafted by the Twins in the 29th round in 1995 as a left-handed pitcher, and rubbed shoulders with fellow Canadian Corey Koskie before an injury forced him out of pro ball.

Reilly remained a pitcher when he started his IBL career in 1997. He took the mound for his hometown Hamilton Cardinals for three seasons, but he had always been a hitter, somewhere in his baseball heart.

“When I was growing up, I was always in my backyard, and I tried to emulate my favourite guys … George Bell and Jose Canseco and guys like that,” Reilly said.

“Being a left-handed pitcher in Canada, that was kind of your ticket to go somewhere, whether in pro ball or on a scholarship. When I came back, I was playing for the Hamilton Cardinals and we didn’t have the strongest team, so I got the chance to hit. I got better and I got stronger, and I always said I like to hit home runs over having sore arms, so I made that transition in the early 2000s and stopped pitching.”

So, how did a minor-league pitcher become such a good hitter?

“I’ve been asked that many times, but I’ll be honest, I never took a hitting lesson in my entire life,” Reilly said.

Cardinals coach Dean Castelli played alongside Reilly before coaching him in Hamilton. Castelli remembers Reilly growing from a tall, skinny kid into a muscular slugger.

“He was a quality pitcher in our league and he could have made his mark in our league as a pitcher,” Castelli said.

“But it was a process for him in becoming a hitter. When I coached him, I think he hit three homers one year and five the next. He kept himself in good shape and once he figured out hitting, the rest was history. I still talk to him regularly, and he stays in great shape. He has a workout room in his basement, and it’s quite a nice setup.”

Reilly switched from the mound to the outfield and kept hitting, and hitting, into his 30s and now his 40s. He’s a 14-time IBL all-star, and his 2013 season — when he hit 21 homers with 60 RBIs — still stands as the single-season record in both categories.

The final shapes up as a battle between the Leafs, the top hitting team in the league, and the Majors, with the best pitching. Toronto boasts Reilly, the batting king this season (.442), along with Justin Marra, who led the league in homers (12) and RBIs (38), and Garret Takamatsu, who finished second in homers with 11.

The top of the London rotation features Pedro De Los Santos (2.19), and Owen Boon (2.33), who were the league’s ERA leaders this season.

Reilly hit three homers this year, and he also notched his 1,000th career hit. Entering the season, he needed 35 hits to reach the milestone.

He remembers the moment he did it.

“It was at (Dominico Field at Christie Pits), and believe it or not it was a crappy, Seeing-Eye single over the second baseman’s head,” Reilly said. “(But) it’s a hit and no one knows the difference in the scorebook.”

While he does ponder the end of his career, Reilly is also unafraid to say that baseball “is all I’ve known.”

He started playing as a 10-year old in Hamilton. Growing up with a single mom and brother Scott, Reilly moved to Beamsville. When he started to get serious about baseball, he played in Burlington while attending Aldershot High School.

He credits his mother, Gail Millward, for countless hours and sacrifices that went into shaping his career.

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“At the time, you just see your mom. She’s your mom, and it’s like, ‘Mom, I got a game tonight, what time are we leaving?’” Reilly said.

“You don’t see the other side of things, like when she was getting out of work early, or instead of maybe getting the family something that it needs, I got a new baseball glove.”

Reilly says “a lot of people” ask him about his stats and, yes, about how much longer he will remain in the game. His answer is simple: He’s been playing since he was 10, and baseball “is all I know.”

The focus is always on the moment, and the moment now is the IBL championship.

Mark Zwolinski is a Toronto-based sports reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @markzwol