Elite pitcher Sean Cleary from Harbour Main, Nfld., pitches during a Canadian inter-squad game in Kitchener, Ont., on May 29.Glenn Lowson/The Globe and Mail
A thunderous pop echoes from the bullpen cage as Sean Cleary's pitch zips through space and snaps the leather of the catcher's glove.
A kid casually pitching hardballs in the next cage looks over at Cleary with his jaw gaping. The guy working the front counter of the field house scrambles over to the outside of Cleary's cage with his phone poised to shoot video. It's a rainy training day in June, so Cleary is inside, still throwing heat – the underhand fast-pitch kind that blisters off the end of a windmill windup.
The 30-year-old native from Harbour Main, Nfld., is the ace of Canada's national men's softball team, and one of the best fast-pitch hurlers in the world. He regularly confounds batters in the St. John's Senior Men's Fast Pitch League, where he was the MVP last season of the most competitive league in the country.
Men's softball is returning to the Pan Am Games for the first time in 12 years, and this brand of fast-pitch is far from the beer-league summer pastime stuff one might imagine. Canada is one of the worldwide powerhouses in the men's game, fresh off a gold medal on Sunday at the International Softball Federation world championships, where they upset defending champion New Zealand for the title before some 6,500 people in Saskatoon. A third of Team Canada's roster – along with two of its assistant coaches – hail from Newfoundland and Labrador.
"In the community where I grew up, there was no baseball – just fast-pitch in summers and hockey in the winters, so that's what I did," said Cleary at the national team's training camp in Kitchener. "I wanted to be just like my older cousin who was a pitcher, and my Dad loved the sport, too, so he'd help me work on it all the time. The junior men's world championships came to St. John's in 1997 and my Dad took me to watch. I just loved it."
Softball is not an Olympic sport, so unlike many Canadian athletes at the Pan Am Games, these guys don't train full-time and don't get Own the Podium funding. At a time when Canadian baseball players are making it to the major leagues in increasing numbers, the comparison with men's fast-pitch softball is more glaring. The sport offers men no professional hopes or college scholarship opportunities. The only money in it is a modest stipend paid to those who play on tournament teams in the International Softball Congress (ISC) circuit. These guys are purely in it for the passion.
Cleary works as an engineering technician at Newfoundland Power. He helped lead the St. John's league team, 3 Cheers Pub, to three successive Canadian titles, while also regularly travelling to Ontario to pitch for the Toronto Gators of the ISC, often with his wife and two small kids in tow. Every extra inning of practice one can muster is key to competing with powers like Australia, Argentina and New Zealand, which play the game year-round.
"He's a big kid, he's very muscular and throws the ball hard, but more than that, he gets incredible movement on his pitches," said John Stuart, Canada's head coach. "His change-up is a huge pitch for him. Guys in this game hate his change-up. It's lethal and embarrassing – he keeps it low in the zone and makes batters look absolutely foolish with it. We're counting on Sean to be our ace."
Cleary and his catcher Ryan Boland, from Goulds, Nfld., make the best of the indoor pitching cage that was meant for baseball on this drizzly afternoon, pulling out a long measuring tape to mark the 46 feet from home plate. They work meticulously on the unpredictable rise balls and drop balls that make Cleary so difficult to hit as he lunges off the mound out of his powerful windmill.
The quiet pitcher and the fiery catcher have been either teammates or competitors for several years back home, along with other Team Canada mainstays from Newfoundland: Brad Ezekiel (Harbour Main), Jason Hill (St. John's) and Steve Mullaley (Freshwater), who slugged three home runs in Sunday's gold-medal game at the world championships.
"It's very popular in Newfoundland and the talent there is extremely high – I'd say there are another 10 players there right now who will contend for spots on this team in the next five, 10 years," Boland said. "Playing this game has brought us around the world, so we do what we can to give back to the kids there and keep it going."
For most on Canada's team, the Pan Am Games will be the first time they've played in a multisport event. They open play Sunday, July 12 against Mexico at President's Choice Ballpark Park in Ajax, Ont.
"It's going to be different than anything we've ever played in; I don't know what to expect," Cleary said. "Playing with a group of buddies, I feel pretty lucky."
Rachel Brady