While the number of American Legion baseball teams is growing smaller and smaller in New Jersey, there are still players who want to play it and utilize it for their upcoming high school season.
Bordentown High senior Rees Pillik is one of those players.
Entering the Scotties’ May 23 game with Sterling, the senior was hitting .443, which trailed sophomore sensation Luke Guire by 10 points. Pillik led the team in hits (31), RBI (22) and home runs (two) and was tied with Guire with five doubles.
“The fact that he’s swinging so well doesn’t really surprise me,” Bordentown coach Chris Glenn said. “He’s got a nice swing, he had a nice swing last year as a junior.”
But he hit .216 last year. What happened?
“It was a little bit about getting experience over the summer,” Glenn continued. “He played a lot with the (Post 26) Legion team. He got a lot of reps, a lot of at-bats. I think that built him confidence wise and you’re seeing it now. He started the season well and it’s just been building.”
Pillik put in a ton of work in the off-season and summer. He got a lot done with acclaimed hitting coach Jerry Salzano, and also felt playing for Post 26 aided him.
Pillik ended up leading all regulars with an average in the low .400s.
“I really think it was just the work I put in and my confidence level,” he said. “I hit fifth in the lineup, I knew I was one of the youngest kids on the team but I had to help out. I just wanted to put my bat on the ball and it helped out.”
It was also during last summer that Pillik had to learn a new position, which proved serendipitous considering where he ended up playing this spring.
“He played in the infield and as a sophomore was getting reps there before Covid,” Glenn said. “Last year he was working out a lot at second but there were some opportunities for him to get some playing time in the outfield so we made that move.”
In legion, he had no other choice but to play outfield as Bordentown was set at second base.
“I played right field, Pillik said. “I kind of found an attachment to that and I was pretty good at it. It can be a little boring but I have a lot of fun out there.”
Once again, his summer paid dividends this spring as Glenn decided to use him full time in right field. Due to the experience he picked up in legion, Pillik adapted.
“He’s been getting better,” Glenn said. “It was a transition for him because he’s an infielder. Moving to the outfield is not always an easy thing to do. Each time out he’s improving.”
Pillik had to make yet another adjustment. He hit near the bottom of the lineup for the Scotties last year and in the middle of the lineup for Post 26. This year, he was elevated to leadoff but was not the prototypical leadoff hitter. Pillik doesn’t have great speed, and he’s not used to taking pitches to try and gain a walk or show his teammates what the opposing hurler is throwing.
“We’re not a quick team anyway but going through the preseason I kind of tried a couple guys there,” Glenn said. “I saw the way he was swinging the bat. I wanted to get guys on ahead of Conor Bell who produced for us last year. I said ‘Let’s go with this and see what happens.’ I put him and Luke at one and two and right from the get-go it took off.
“I was pleasantly surprised, because I wasn’t sure he was gonna adapt to that leadoff spot. That’s not an easy spot to jump into, especially when you don’t have that much varsity experience. But from game one he took off with it. He’s not your classic leadoff guy but to his credit he’s made it work for him.”
Pillik admitted that when he saw his name at the top of the lineup in the Scotties first scrimmage, he was surprised. He was also excited.
“I guess it’s going pretty well so far,” he said. “I definitely had to ask coach what he required of me to be number one. I know my hitting style isn’t what a number one hitter is supposed to look like. So I talked to coach, I put what I usually do together with what he wants me to do and just tried to do the best I could.”
A right-handed hitter, Pillik gets many of his hits to right field, admitting that he’s not big on turning on a pitch.
“It’s really like an inside joke with my team that I can’t pull that well, so a lot of my hits I try to put into right field and put it in gaps,” he said. “I’m more confident going to the right side”
Baseball has always been a part of Pillik’s life. He started in the Bordentown Little League before playing travel with the West Jersey Wildcats (playing for his dad), the Hamilton A’s Elite and the Mercer Makos.
Unfortunately, his career will end next year. A National Honor Society member with a 4.3 grade point average, Rees is headed for Rowan to major in Engineering and, more specifically, Computer Engineering.
“I always had a passion for computers, technology and working with my hands,” Pillik said. “Engineering is a pretty big thing, you can’t really do both engineering and sports.”
And while it’s a shame his scholastic baseball career is ending, Rees can take solace in the fact his final year was a good one.
“He’s a real nice kid and a hard worker,” Glenn said. “I know last year there were guys we had coming back, he was kind of stuck in the middle of where he wanted to be but he always worked hard. He just loves the game, he always wanted to get in that starting spot and once he did, he’s been thriving with it.”
And he has been the perfect example that American Legion baseball can still be valuable to high school players.
Bordentown senior outfielder Rees Pillik raised his batting average from .216 to the low .400s this season. (Photo by Rich Fisher.),
