Why 'fearless' Kevin Pillar's former teammates, coaches aren't surprised by quick Mets return

It’s not quite right to say that Kevin Pillar was a well-kept secret before all of this. He’s been in the big leagues for nine years, playing with such flair as a center fielder that he was nicknamed Superman in Toronto, regularly launching himself into the air to make spectacular catches.

Yet, Pillar was never really famous, either, until he took that fastball to the face a couple of weeks ago and proceeded to astonish and inspire so many people, starting with his Mets teammates in the way he handled the injury and its aftermath.

Well, he wasn’t famous to most of the world before that, anyway.

In Southern California where Pillar grew up refusing to believe he wasn’t good enough to be a big-leaguer, even when no one offered him a D-I scholarship, even when a record-breaking 54-game hitting streak at a D-II college earned him nothing more than a lottery-ticket selection by the Blue Jays in the 32^nd round of the draft, the guy has long been something of a local legend.

“He was already a hero to everybody that grew up with him or knows about him out here,” David Fair, a high school and college teammate of Pillar’s said by phone this week. “For you guys in New York to see what he we love about him is great.

“The injury was unfortunate, but people got to understand a little more about Kevin, the man. They got to see there’s something special about him.”

Yes, what made Pillar’s zoom call with the media the day after his beaning so mesmerizing wasn’t just his the obvious toughness in wanting to return quickly. But the need he felt to be there for his teammates as well as the concern he expressed for Jacob Webb, the Atlanta Braves pitcher who had been visibly shaken after the pitch that got away.

In a subsequent zoom call, Pillar explained all of that as a reflection on his parents, Mike and Wendy Pillar, and the way they raised him. They passed on the work ethic that helped them build a successful flooring business as well as leadership qualities that made their son such a memorable figure during his high school days at Chaminade Prep in West Hills, Calif.

“So many kids were drawn to him because of his personality,” recalls Mark Gubicza, the long-time Kansas City Royals pitcher who was the head coach at Chaminade when Pillar was there. “He was a phenomenal athlete and he was fearless. It was just really cool being around him. He made everyone laugh, and he made his teammates better just because of how hard he played, the intensity he brought every day.”

Over the phone, Gubicza, now a TV analyst for the Los Angeles Angels, laughed just thinking about those days. As someone who grew up in the Philadelphia area, Gubicza related to Pillar’s intensity as more of an east coast trait, which he felt made Pillar stand out in the laid-back So Cal environment.

“He had an edge to him and you don’t see a lot of that in Southern California,” said Gubicza. “Everyone’s chill, everyone’s surfing, or doing all this other stuff, but Kevin was playing some kind of sport all the time, and always all-out. His intensity is what helped him get to the big leagues, even though he was overlooked by scouts.

“When he signed with the Mets, I knew they’d love him there because he plays the game so hard. He fits right in there -- it’s almost like he’s a New Yorker already. The way he handled the injury was just who he is. I texted him right after he got hit with that pitch and he texted me that night, saying he was hoping he could play the next day. He’s always been like that.”

Indeed, after the beaning, Pillar amazed his teammates by showing up in the clubhouse the next day asking if he was in the lineup that night. He was joking but only because, as he said, the broken bones in his nose had caused so much swelling that he couldn’t see out of one of his eyes.

By then, Pillar had already made an impression with the Mets, but this took it to another level. Jacob deGrom paid him the ultimate compliment by wearing Pillar’s No. 11 during a rehab start in Port St. Lucie a few days later -- a tribute that Gubicza, as a former big leaguer, found remarkable.

“Here’s one of the best players in baseball wearing Kevin’s number in his honor of what happened,” said Gubicza. “That told you everything about what the Mets thought of him, even though he’d only been there a short time.”

Yet, the people who know Pillar best expected nothing less.

“I actually thought he’d be back sooner than he was,” says Jim Milkovich, Dean of Students at Chaminade and an assistant baseball coach during the Pillar years. “It was incredible to see him walk off the field after he got hit, bleeding as much as he was. But knowing Kevin, I figured he’d be back in three or four days. I could see him with a couple of cotton balls in his nose trying to go out and play the next day.

“If you were around him back when he was in high school, nothing would surprise you. He was an Iron Man who played three sports and never got hurt. Or he’d never tell us, anyway. He was ultra-competitive and played with ultra-intensity, even doing the not-so-exciting stuff in practice. Our teams were really successful at the time and a lot of it was because they just followed Kevin’s lead.”

It was at Chaminade where Pillar first became known for his diving catches, one in particular that everyone from those days still talks about that came in the last inning of a 3-2 win over nearby Chatsworth High School, the No. 1 team in the country at the time featuring Mike Moustakas, who went on to big-league fame with the Royals.

Pillar’s long-time friend, Fair, was trying to finish off a complete-game win as the pitcher, and needed one more out, with the tying and winning runs on second and third.

“And the guy at the plate rips one to the gap in left-center and I thought I’d lost the game,” Fair recalled. “But out of nowhere, stage left, Kevin came flying in to make one of his Superman catches, fully laid-out, to end the game. It was a huge win for our program, a huge win for me personally, and I’ll always have a lot of gratitude for the way Kevin was willing to sacrifice his body for the team.”

Gubicza likened it to “a Bo Jackson moment,” while Milkovich recalled that “Kevin got up after the catch, pumping his fist like we’d won the World Series. That was the point where you knew he was something special.”

For anyone connected with the baseball program, meanwhile, it wasn’t so exhilarating watching Pillar play football at Chaminade with the same intensity.

“I’d go to the games,” Gubicza recalled, “and I’d be chewing on my nails the whole time, saying, ‘Don’t get hurt, don’t get hurt.’ He was a wide receiver and a punt returner, and every time he’d be back to return a punt, I was just hoping he’d call for a fair catch. But he never did. That wouldn’t be Kevin.”

Even with all of his intangibles, Pillar couldn’t convince talent evaluators that he had much potential beyond high school. When no D-I college offers came along, he decided to join his teammate, Fair, at D-II Cal-State Dominguez Hills.

“That put a chip on his shoulder,” Gubicza said. “He believed he was going to be a big-league player, and being overlooked just made him more determined.”

In college, Pillar played with the same fearlessness, Fair recalled, even though it occasionally took its toll.

“During our sophomore year, Kevin broke his foot when he went up to make one of his signature catches on our nine-foot wall at Dominguez Hills and came down the wrong way,” Fair said. “It was just an intrasquad game, but Kevin was going all-out as always, and he had to be carted off the field.

“He needed surgery on the foot, and because he’d been playing with an injured left shoulder that was going to need surgery eventually, he decided to get surgery done on the shoulder at the same time, so he’d be back fully healthy quicker that way.

“I remember going to his house to see him and he had a cast on his foot and his arm in a sling. His whole left side was basically casted. But he was back playing again before long and playing just as hard. He only knows one speed.”

Fair, who now coaches at Chaminade, says he watched Pillar blossom into such a star in college that he couldn’t believe his teammate went undrafted after his junior year, the first year he was draft-eligible in college. And that’s especially after Pillar put together a 54-game hitting streak that is still a D-II record, and four games short of the NCAA record set by former Met Robin Ventura at Oklahoma St.

“That was really something,” said Fair. “There were a bunch of times when he got a hit in his last at-bat to keep the streak going. Once he hit a walk-off home run to extend it. Kevin was always super-clutch, but sometimes we’d just sit there watching in amazement.

“The thing is, though, off the field he was really Zen about it. He was the same guy, with a great sense of humor, just playing video games or whatever. He didn’t mind talking about the streak. He would always say to me, ‘I’m trying to get a hit in every at-bat anyway, whether it’s 50 games in a row or one game, it’s the same mentality.’ ’’

Even with the recognition the hitting streak brought, Pillar was still regarded as a marginal pro prospect, so it wasn’t until the 32^nd round of the 2011 draft that the Blue Jays took a shot with him, making him the 979^th player selected that year.

“If he was disappointed, he never showed it,” Fair said. “He just wanted to prove the draft wasn’t an exact science. I think he did that by outworking everybody. Eventually everybody got to see what we’d always known about how he could play the game.”

Nine years in the big leagues later, Pillar indeed has proven the scouts underestimated his ability to impact games with his defense, in addition to his ability to become a solid hitter, with those intangibles that added to his value.

After Pillar had a strong season for the Red Sox and Rockies (via a trade) in 2020, the Mets signed him to a one-year, $5 million contract (with a $6.4 million team option in 2022) as a depth piece, not sure how much he’d play backing up Brandon Nimmo in center field.

An injury to Nimmo gave Pillar the chance to play regularly, and he contributed some key hits while playing his usual good defense, making the Mets look smart for signing him. But then came the beaning in Atlanta on May 17, and everything after that has turned Pillar into something of a folk hero in New York.

“I hate that it happened to him but I’m glad people got to see what he’s all about,” Gubicza said. “He never worried about injury. There were so many times, in high school and then in the big leagues when I was worried, he was going to hurt himself diving into walls. I remember telling him once that maybe he should be careful so he didn’t shorten his career, and he just looked at me and said, ‘I can’t stop being me.’

“After he got hit in the face it was the same way. I was thinking, ‘man, Kev, slow down,’ but I knew he’d come back quickly. Then I was watching on TV when he took that first at-bat (Monday night in Arizona). I knew they were going to pitch him inside because it’s the big leagues and they were going to want to see if he’s going to be apprehensive.

“But he didn’t give any ground at all. And then he pulled that ball to left for a hit and I was about in tears watching it. Even telling you about it now I’ve got goose bumps. It was awesome. But I wasn’t surprised. That’s Kev.”