At one time, Fred LeSage and the late Irish O’Reilly attended St. Joseph Catholic Church in Manteno together.
Now, they are going into a hall of fame together.
The two local baseball legends will be inducted into the new Illinois Sports Hall of Fame on June 13-14 at the Bank of Springfield Convention Center in Springfield.
Hundreds of athletes, coaches and administrators from Illinois or who played on teams from Illinois will be inducted. The baseball group includes big names such as Frank Thomas and Ernie Banks.
LeSage is a longtime manager of the Beecher Muskies, an amateur baseball team that got its start in Manteno, and O’Reilly was a longtime coach at Lewis University.
LeSage was surprised by the honor.
“I think there are people they should be putting here before me,” he said. “I can think of 20 people they could pick before me.
“It’s very nice to be noticed, I guess. When you are out there doing it every day, you aren’t doing it for recognition.”
He said that O’Reilly deserves to be in the hall.
“He was a very astute about the game and very serious about how he approached it,” LeSage said of O’Reilly. “He was very competitive, but also even-tempered. He didn’t get too high. He didn’t get too low.”
Years ago, the two chatted at an event at the Kankakee County Historical Museum.
“Irish and I had a long talk about what we had done over the years with baseball,” he said. “He had a tremendous career at Lewis. He was a great baseball man, for sure.”
O’Reilly died in 2018 at age 74. He had a 1,246-916-8 record in 38 years of coaching on the high-school and college levels. He coached 41 All-Americans and 51 players who went on to the professional level.
LeSage is a Chicago Suburban League Hall of Famer and six-time Manager of the Year, including in 2024. He was voted the National Amateur Baseball Federation Man of the Year in 2014. As a player he was a Sullivan League All-Star in 1985 and 1987. He started managing the Muskies in 1994.
“I love baseball — there is no other way around it,” LeSage said. “I would rather watch baseball or play in a game … it’s just a thing.
“Sometimes you find your calling in life and it’s the thing you love to do.”
Boley No. 1 in nation
Former Beecher track and field star Maddie Boley holds the No. 1 spot in the nation in the discus.
The Monmouth senior led all Division III throwers after a heave of 49.06 meters (160 feet, 11.5 inches) April 5 during the Viking Olympics at Augustana.
“It was a good national competition and it was good to get a good throw out there,” she said in a video on the Monmouth website. “It’s encouraging that I got something big out there early on. It feels like a relief. Usually, it takes me a little while to get a good throw out there.”
It was also the second-best throw in school history after Tanesha Hughes’ 50.14 in 2009.
Sports bits
Beecher softball pitcher Taylor Norkus fired her second perfect game of the year and sixth of her career April 8 in an 18-0, four-inning win over Donovan. She also had three hits and drove in three runs.
● Beecher basketball player Evelyn Jablonski committed to North Central College.
● Manteno’s Ray Lee was named to the Illinois Media All-State boys basketball honorable mention team.
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