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Zach Soolman unleashes a pitch during his comeback start with Larkin Club after Tommy John surgery.

Zach Soolman, Tommy John Surgery, and The Love of the Game

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 fantasy, and real life is real life. And for Zach Soolman, in hisa 28th summer, real life meant working in the consumer marketing department for Gorton’s Seafoods, and, just for kicks, pitching for the Larkin Club in the Boston Park League.

Soolman has been pitching pretty much his whole life, from Little League bandboxes to Needham High School to Tufts University. His college career ended with his graduation from Tufts in 1995, but he never stopped pitching. Going into last season, he had been a Park League mainstay for nine years.

We bring you, then, to the night of July 30, 2001. Read more

Zach Soolman Pitching at Fenway Park

Playing for the Love of the Game

My shoulder is held together with fishing line, says veteran righthander Dave Worthley of the Boston Park League’s Towne Club. And he’s not joking. Doctors gave me a 50-50 chance of being able to throw again, but I made it perfectly clear that for me it was 99 percent. Read more