Home Run Hero … and Artist
Long John Reilly was a great ballplayer in his day, with a knack for hitting home runs. In 1888 his 13 home runs not only led the league but constituted the second most impressive home-run mark of the 19th century, as measured by standard deviations above the norm. Indeed, by this measure Reilly’s mark remains one of the top 25 in all baseball history, as described in Bill Felber’s “The Most Dominant Home Run Season Ever: Sabermetric Methods Applied to Feats of Long Ago” (https://goo.gl/8NzPxV).
Forgotten today by all but a handful, first baseman Reilly had an impressive OPS+ of 129 for his career, which was punctuated by a record three instances of hitting for the cycle (twice in one week in 1883, including a six-hit game). In 1890 he hit an astounding 26 triples. Had he not played his entire big-league career in Cincinnati, all but three in the American Association, baseball savants might have awarded Reilly consideration for the Hall of Fame.
I was in Cincinnati this past weekend for the wedding of my middle son. Baseball was far from my mind, not to mention John Reilly, when on an afternoon stroll downtown my wife suggested we enter the Cincinnati Art Gallery, just a block from our hotel. David Hausrath, the gallery’s owner, asked if I was baseball fan; I assured him that I was. On his desk was a sketchbook he had just disbound, with the intention of placing some pages in a forthcoming exhibition. He asked if I knew the name John Reilly, who had signed each of the pencil sketches…
Oh, I could tell you more about Reilly the ballplayer and even Reilly the artist, but my dear departed friend David Ball beat me to the punch, and I could not top his biographical portrait, which I commend to your attention (https://goo.gl/wRfHtd). But let me expound on the art just a little.
When John Good Reilly was 14 his mother apprenticed him to the Strobridge Lithographic Company, famous for its colorful posters for circus and theater. He would go on to work for that company in the offseason of his baseball years, on up to 1932, according to one account. Ball writes:
Among the items in the Cincinnati Historical Society archives’ collection of Strobridge materials is a practice sketchbook signed, in large flourishes, “John Reilly, 98 Kilgour St., Cincinnati Ohio U.S.A,” which includes a variety of practice sketches made by the young apprentice, among them elaborate emblems for the “Emmet [sic] Green Stockings Base Ball Club Cinci” as well as a “Resolutes Base Ball Club.”
A capsule biography in the New York Clipper of February 16, 1889 reads:
He gained his great reputation as a ball player with the Metropolitans in this city in 1882 when they became champion of the League Alliance. The Mets played 162 games that year, which were the greatest number of games played in one season up to that time. Reilly, however, is a Western man, being born in Cincinnati, Ohio, where, in that part of that city known as the “Bottoms,” he learned to play ball. It was seen almost from the first that “Long John” was the making of a ball player. Shortly afterward he was induced to join the Mohawk Browns, a famous amateur organization of his native city that had developed such noted ball players as Buck Ewing, now of the New Yorks, and others. It was while with this team that the veteran Robert Ferguson, who saw him play, predicted that he would soon occupy a prominent place in the professional ranks. How true was that prediction has since been proven.
In 1880 Reilly played first base for the Cincinnati Club of the National League, that being the club’s last year as a member of that organization. In 1881 he played with a semi-professional team of his native city. In 1882 he received quite a flattering offer to play first base for the Metropolitan team of this city, which was at that time managed by the genial James Mutrie, and he accepted it. He was not long with the Mets before he was recognized as a great player, excelling as batter, fielder and base runner. As a member of the Mets in 1882 Reilly took part in 157 games, and made 175 first base hits, and tallied 130 runs. He put out 1,673 men and was charged with 71 errors.
Reilly was a great favorite with the patrons of the national game in this city. In the legal dispute between the National League and the American Association during the Winter of 1882–3, Reilly was awarded to the Cincinnati Club, and he was placed on first base, although the Cincinnati Club had previously signed John S. Corkhill for that position. “Long John,” however, was assigned to be the guardian of the first base and he has remained there ever since. His “great reaches” after the ball while he still keeps his foot on the bag have been the delight as well as a source of wonderment to the lovers of the national game in Cincinnati. Reilly off the ball field is an artist, and, in that line, he has gained quite as much celebrity as he has as a professional player….
There was no further mention of his artistic side in that 1889 profile, but a year earlier Sporting Life had reported, “John Reilly has fitted up a studio in his home and does all his artistic work there now.” Ren Mulford, Jr. reported in 1914:
LONG JOHN, THE ARTIST. Artistic Cincinnati is talking of the sketches by Long John Reilly, which are hung in the gallery of the Cincinnati Art Club at the old Lincoln Club rooms. When the old Red was on the road with the team he always carried his sketch book with him. He is one of the best of the local artists devoted to lithography. Long John is as famous in his way as John Rettig, J. H. Sharp, Henry F. Farney [sic; should be Farny] and Henry [sic; should be Frank] Duveneck of the local school of art are in theirs. Reilly shows 103 little studies at the present show. He is a rare old bachelor devoted to his art, and seldom goes to the ball yard where he once reigned a ruling favorite. Once I possessed a Reilly sketch, one of his humoresque efforts showing “Bug” Holiday’s home run as he hop-scotched around the bases at Mansfield. Instead of having it framed I placed it in my desk, where a mouse with a fondness for watercolors chewed all the art off my treasure and turned me into an all-time mourner for the sketch that I prized as a gift from an old friend!
Reilly also exhibited some paintings at the Cincinnati Art Club, but their whereabouts are today unknown, at least to me — as were his mature sketches, until this past weekend. I was fortunate enough to purchase the three depicted.
The Life of Reilly was originally published in Our Game on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.