At 57, Franz Strassmann is the second-oldest active player in the Boston Park League in addition to playing for two teams in the Men’s Senior Baseball League and Boston Amateur Baseball League. Read more
At 51, Kevin MacIntyre of TJO Sports in hadn’t pitched for the Boston Park League in 26 years. On August 5, 2014, he won a complete game over Towne Club, 8-5. Read more
The annual Red Sox Foundation-run program brings young Bostonians to Japan or Japanese youths to Boston for a 10-day exchange of baseball and culture. The guests stay with local host families — an experience that literally transforms their view of the world and their place in it. The program features baseball clinics and scrimmages with local youth leagues along with visits to educational and cultural attractions. Harvey Soolman and the BPL hosted.
In May of 1973, the Dick Conley Club of West Roxbury and the Supreme Saints faced off in the Boston Park League opener. But this was no opener to take sitting down.
On this particular Monday night at Roslindale’s Fallon Field, the Park League introduced the designated hitter to sandlot baseball. Dick Paster didn’t get to play the field this day. But his at bats were historic. Read more
Boston Park League legend, John Tedeman, passed away on February 6, 2014 in his home surrounded by his loving family. The Class of 2004 Hall of Famer was 69 years old.
A memorial service will be held on Friday, March 14th, 2014 at the Granite Links Golf Club at Quarry Hills, 100 Quarry Hills Dr., Quincy from 11:30am-2:30pm. Read more
J.P. Songin is a perennial all-star in the Boston Park League. He also has a love-hate relationship with baseball.
“I love the game, especially hitting,’’ said the 36-year-old Norwood resident, a player-manager for the Palmer Club, “and I hate to strike out.’’
That motivation, according to league records kept since the 2007 season, has indeed brought out the best in Songin, who has fanned just 33 times in his last 651 at-bats while hitting .346.
A star at Walpole High who belted two homers in one game against Bay State Conference rival Natick his senior season in 1995, Songin went on to record a .402 average in his final year at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Ga. Read more
Medford’s Harvey Soolman couldn’t make the Northeastern varsity baseball team, but he quickly found a home in the Park League.
Somewhere under the crumbling cement bleachers at Kelly Field in Hyde Park, Harvey -Soolman works his way through a sea of equipment and benches in the dark, finds a fuse box on the wall, and flicks a switch. The lights towering above the baseball diamonds begin to flicker in the twilight as the Little League field across the way enjoys the last few splashes of sunshine that the day will offer.
Soolman appears in the outfield, strolling out from behind the bleachers like a legend pushing his way out of the corn fields and onto the warning track of Ray Kinsella’s field in Iowa. He is in full uniform, with number 11 emblazoned in red on the back of his JM Force jersey, the team he manages in the Boston Park League. Read more
Kevin McGlinchy made his Major League debut at age 21, in April 1999, with the Atlanta Braves. That October, he was on the mound at Yankee Stadium, pitching in the World Series. But his last big league appearance came when he was just 23.
Still, he has no regrets.
“Nah, I wouldn’t change anything,” said McGlinchy, drafted out of Malden High by the Braves in the fifth round of the 1995 first-year player draft. “Because then it would screw up the evolution of my life.
“But I feel like I could have done more. That’s why I’m still playing. I got four years in the majors and six years in the minor leagues. That’s a pretty good career so far.”
After several years of coaching, helping out alumni camps for the Major League Baseball Players Association, and giving private pitching instructions, the 34-year-old McGlinchy is pitching again. He was undefeated for Carlson of the Boston Park League. In 10 regular-season games he went 8-0 with a 0.76 ERA, racking up 76 strikeouts and just six walks in 59 1/3 innings. He allowed just one home run for the season. Read more
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 .376 this season and came up with several game-changing hits.
“Anytime he’s at the plate, you always know something special is going to happen,” Neal said. Read more
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 school alma mater, Catholic Memorial in West Roxbury, recently completed his 11th season in the Boston Park League as shortstop for the Stockyard Club, the runner-up in the league championship series last week to the Boston Padres.
A league all-star who batted .308 as one of the team’s elders at age 30, Carey played for the Park League’s All Dorchester Sports League team for three seasons while attending Harvard and the past eight years for the Walsh and Stockyard clubs. Read more
