It’s a sultry summer night, and the collision of wooden bats and hurtling baseballs echoes around the cozy grass amphitheater of Fallon Field in Roslindale. “Nice throw, Danny!’’ barks Franz Strassmann, the coach of Grossman Marketing, which is battling to wrap up a playoff berth. Scattered applause ripples from the metal bleachers behind home plate […]
Boston Padres manager Ed Neal cannot remember how Foxborough’s Mike Ross ended up with his team nearly 10 years ago. But after all this time, he is happy Ross stuck around. Ross was among the Padres’ leading hitters as he helped the team earn its first Boston Park League championship last month. The outfielder hit […]
Though he last wore a Harvard University baseball uniform in the spring of 1999, Hal Carey still holds school records for career hits and stolen bases. The Needham native is still playing the game he loves, and playing it well, in the nation’s oldest continuous amateur baseball league. Carey, head baseball coach at his high […]
It was a playoff game between Reading and Tewksbury and the schedule-maker assigned two guys named Driscoll as the umpires. The base umpire, Joe Driscoll, seemingly had been around baseball forever, a veteran arbiter whom everybody trusted. The plate umpire was Joe’s son, Todd. He was young, inexperienced. There were fears he’d make a bad call […]
Tall, lanky left-hander Zak Smotherman throws a sharply curving breaking ball that would fool even the most skilled of hitters. The pitch stuns the right-handed batter, as the umpire bellows out the verdict for the handful of fans. The batter, clearly upset, wipes the sweat off of his face with the sleeve of his Mass. […]
It was a scene from an earlier, simpler time, before the onslaught of cell phones, pagers and wide-screen, high-definition television. The Padres, a longtime entry in the Boston Park League, and in a scramble for the BPL’s two remaining playoff spots, had just emerged with a 6-3 victory over Cannon Club at Hyde Park’s Ross […]
The rules of etiquette in amateur baseball are quite clear in the matter of players losing their cool. You throw your helmet, you’re gone. You throw your bat, you’re gone. No discussion, no debates, no appeals. But even very good umpires do not have eyes in the back of their heads. So let’s say a […]
Earl Metzler, principal of Sterling Middle School in Quincy, is the winningest pitcher of the Boston Park League. Pitching for Chathams Rowe, he notched his 100th victory.
If Zach Soolman’s true baseball ambitions had been realized, he’d have been pitching for the Red Sox last summer, perhaps working in step with Pedro Martinez in the rotation and giving New England baseball fans a dazzling 1-2 pitching punch: Zach and Pete, and pray for sleet, or some such pressbox contrivance. But fantasy is […]
The Boston Park League ripe with all kinds of baseball players – and stories.
