The Boston Red Sox continue to battle through a plague of injuries this season, and are now seeing if a carpenter can help rebuild the team’s pitching staff.
With five pitchers currently listed on the injured list, the Boston Red Sox are looking for quality arms anywhere they can find them as the ballclub looks to keep pace in the ultra-competitive American League East.
To that effect, the organization called up 32-year-old hurler Cam Booser. Booser was once a reliever rising the ranks in the Minnesota Twins organization. However, a series of severe injuries followed by a 50-game suspension for drug use had Booser quit. the game in 2017.
Boston Red Sox Key on Booser’s Career Rebirth
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After dropping out of baseball, Booser moved to his native Seattle, and followed his father’s fathers footsteps into carpentry. However, while constructing acoustical ceilings, Booser told MLB.com that he never stopped thinking about the game he loved, saying:
“Every day I was working in construction, I thought about the game. Every single day.”
Thoughts of giving it another go began as Booser began giving baseball lessons to local children. He began throwing again, ramping up with hours of practice throwing to some of the same kids he was teaching. He told MLB.com:
“I didn’t think about ever actually making a comeback until I started working with them. It was just the more I was around the game, the more I couldn’t not be around it. It was like it just pulled me back in. I just decided one day that I was going to leave work and go all in on this, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Booser began working with a trainer, and his pitching sessions against live hitters began to trickle out on social media. It 2021, the Chicago Dogs of the independent American Association approached him about returning to professional baseball. After hitting 101 mph in his Dogs debut, he went on to log a 1-2 record with a 1.93 ERA in 21 games.
That made the Arizona Diamondbacks take notice. The MLB organization signed Booser to a minor-league contract and assigned him to Double-A Amarillo in 2022. It didn’t go all that well, as Booser logged a 6.48 ERA in 19 games.
Booser Appealed to Boston Red Sox in 2023
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However, the Boston Red Sox saw something they liked and signed Booser to a minor-league deal in 2023. Now 31, he made his Triple-A debut with the team’s Triple-A Worchester club. His ERA dropped to 4.99 and he had a 4-3 record over 48 games.
That was good enough to get Booser an invitation to spring training with the Boston Red Sox this year. After being returned to Worcester to begin the regular season, Booser began posting his best minor-league numbers. After going 2-0 with a 2.70 ERA in four games, the pitching-starved Boston Red Sox made the call — 11 years after beginning his professional debut, Booser was going to “The Show.”
With all his setbacks, Booser told MLB.com that he had doubted that the call would ever come, but kept on trying all the same, saying:
“The first part of my career was, by my own doing, pretty bad. I made a few mistakes. But I think when I was able to come back and get a better head on my shoulders, things were a lot more clear.”
Booser made his MLB debut Friday night, allowing one earned run in an inning of work against the Pittsburgh Pirates, nailing down the final three outs of an 8-1 Boston Red Sox win. The highlight was a strikeout of former National League Most Valuable Player Andrew McCutchen. Booser’s major-league dream came true at last. He told MLB.com:
“It was the most adrenaline I’ve ever experienced, but it was great. It was all excitement.”
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Tom Carothers is a sportswriter with more than 20 years of experience covering sports at the high school, collegiate, and professional levels. Still longing for the return of his Minnesota North Stars, he has a high pain tolerance as a big fan of the Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Browns, and Tottenham Hotspur.
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