Whether you’re a baseball fan or not, if you admire inspiring athletes, I guarantee you’ll fall in love with Cam Booser by the end of this column.
I didn’t know this Cam Booser last week. There, it became one of my favorite launchers. Its story is like that of the Disney film The recruit (the true story of Jim Morris), but if Réjean Tremblay had added a layer.
Booser was a gifted athlete in his youth. In 2009, he was named the best player in his high school baseball league in Washington state, even though he was younger than the others.
First slap in the face: he fractured his femur the following year while playing football and had to have knee surgery. By the way, it’s not that easy to fracture your femur, it takes a nasty shock.
He goes for rehabilitation, but, second slap in the face, he fractures a vertebra while he was lifting weights in the gym.
He still managed to join Oregon State University and its prestigious baseball program.
Third slap
But, third slap in the face, he injured his elbow and had to undergo Tommy John type surgery. It’s over a year of rehabilitation. It’s 2011.
Fourth slap in the face: he transfers to another much less prestigious college. At the age of 21, in 2013, he managed to throw 19 innings at this small college. Obviously, he was not drafted in major baseball.
In his mind, he is a high-level prospect. But all these injuries took him off recruiters’ radars. Nevertheless, he still dreams of playing professional baseball and he still has a lot of talent.
After college, he managed to sign a contract for a few thousand dollars to join a Minnesota Twins farm club.
After a full season, fifth slap in the face. He needs surgery due to a tear in his shoulder.
Then, three months later, in December 2015, the sixth slap in the face: he was hit head-on by a car and fractured his sacrum, a bone in his lower back.
He tried to relaunch his career for two years, but was unable to do so. In 2017, he announced his retirement and returned to his hometown, Seattle. He then became a carpenter.
Except he misses baseball. Three years later, he began giving pitching lessons to children.
Like in a movie, he measures his velocity and realizes that he can still throw 96 miles per hour, that is, like all the best pitchers in the world.
In 2021, he therefore attempted a return to baseball in an independent circuit in Chicago. He’s too strong for the league. He recorded 39 strikeouts in 20 innings.
It’s almost there…or not
The Arizona Diamondbacks then pounced on him by signing him to a contract that brought him to the AA level, only two levels before the majors, with the Lawn Poodles of Amarillo, Texas (yes yes, that’s it). is really the name of the team). But he throws a lot of walks, and seventh strikes him in the face: he is fired.
He doesn’t give up. In 2022, he returns to an independent league and still manages to demonstrate that hitters look crazy against him.
During the off-season, at the start of 2023, the Red Sox signed him to a contract and sent him to the AAA level, the one preceding the MLB. Booser had an excellent season and managed to throw more than 50 innings in a year for the first time in his career.
And finally, you suspect what happened last week. At age 31, Booser pitched his first inning in major league baseball with Boston.
“Success is falling seven times and getting up eight times,” says a Japanese proverb. That’s exactly what Cam Booser did after seven slaps in the face.
Sources: Baseball reference, The Seattle Times, The Athletic et MLB.com
2024-04-23 17:34:01
#Carpenter #road #accident #victim #and.. #pitcher #Red #Sox
