Cam Booser left baseball in 2017. He is now in MLB

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Cam Booser thought he was done with baseball seven years ago.

Turns out baseball wasn’t done with him.

The left-handed pitcher left the game in 2017, discouraged by a series of injuries ranging from Tommy John surgery to a broken back suffered when he was hit by a car while riding his bike, and self-inflicted injuries such as in a 50 match. suspension of medication.

He returned home to Seattle and took up carpentry, working on acoustic ceilings. He was good at it, but not as good as the guys he worked with, and he knew it.

In all that time, the game he had devoted his life to had never truly left him. He found himself thinking about it every day during a retreat that turned out to be nothing more than a sabbatical.

In 2021, Booser was back on the mound and pain-free. That first throwing session turned into another. Then another. His speed returned. The discomfort that Booser has long associated with pitching did not occur.

And on Friday, Booser’s return took another unexpected turn he never saw coming during his long hiatus: a spot in the major leagues.

The Boston Red Sox called up Booser, 31, from Triple-A Worcester, a destination Booser admits he never considered until it happened.

“Yeah, the first part of my career was, through my own fault, pretty bad,” Booser told reporters inside the visiting clubhouse at PNC Park before the Red Sox began an interleague series of three games in Pittsburgh. “I made a few mistakes. But I think when I was able to come back and have a better head on my shoulders, things were a lot clearer.

Talent has rarely been an issue for Booser, whose fastball routinely hovers in the upper 90s. But control was another matter. He spent four summers toiling in the minors for Minnesota, never rising above Class A. The Twins briefly tried to convert him to a position player. That didn’t take either.

Finally, in 2017, Booser walked away. But it wasn’t just his mind that couldn’t let go. A friend couldn’t either, prompting Booser to hire a trainer. The coach began posting videos of Booser on social media. The Chicago Dogs, an independent minor league team, saw enough to give him a chance in 2021.

The Arizona Diamondbacks took a flyer on Booser and placed him at Double-A in 2022.

It didn’t take.

Booser was released in July and signed with another independent team before landing in the Red Sox organization in 2023. Around the middle of last season, something shifted.

The ball was going where Booser threw it most often, and hitters couldn’t seem to hit it more often than not. Booser was lights out in spring training and even better for Worcester, striking out 15 against just one walk in 6 2/3 innings before walking into Worcester manager Chad Tracy’s office on Thursday.

Tracy asked Booser if he was ready to pitch. Booser said sure and only half-jokingly offered to start. Tracy had another idea. How about pitching in Pittsburgh?

At first, it didn’t do any math.

“That didn’t seem relevant to him, did it?” » said Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who was listening. ” Like what ? “Yeah, for Alex in Pittsburgh” and that’s when he let the emotions go.

Cora thinks Booser has become more than a southpaw versus southpaw specialist. Although Cora isn’t sure Booser will be able to maintain his “crazy” strikeout rate in the majors, he’s not worried about Booser playing.

“We expect him to do big things for us,” Cora said.

And if Booser’s arrival reminds the rest of the roster of the importance of perseverance and faith, all the better.

“To get to the big leagues, there are different ways, different paths,” Cora said. “And his is very different from a lot of people’s.”