PITTSBURGH -- Cam Booser thought he was done with baseball seven years ago.
Turns out, baseball wasn't done with him.
The left-handed pitcher walked away from the game in 2017, discouraged by a string of injuries from Tommy John surgery to a broken back suffered when he was hit by a car while riding his bike and self-inflicted wounds like a 50-game drug suspension.
He returned home to Seattle and poured himself into carpentry, working on acoustical ceilings. He was good at it, just not as good as the guys he worked alongside, and he knew it.
All the while, the game he had dedicated his life to never really left his mind. He would find himself thinking about it daily during a retirement that turned out to merely be a sabbatical.
By 2021, Booser was back on the mound and pain free. That first throwing session turned into another. Then another. His velocity returned. The discomfort Booser long associated with pitching did not.
And on Friday, Booser's comeback took another unexpected turn, one he never saw coming during his extended break: a spot in the major leagues.
The Boston Red Sox called up the 31-year-old Booser from Triple-A Worcester, a destination he admits he never considered until the moment it happened.
"The first part of my career was, by my own doing, pretty bad," Booser said before pitching the ninth inning in an 8-1 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. "I made a few mistakes. But I think when I was able to come back and get a better head on my shoulders, things were a lot more clear."
That clarity led to the most adrenaline-fueled walk of his life when he was summoned from the bullpen with Boston comfortably ahead Friday.
He took a moment to settle himself and then gave up a triple to pinch-hitter Alika Williams. A strikeout of five-time All-Star Andrew McCutchen on a 95 mph fastball followed then two routine groundouts to end a day that will be forever etched in his memory.
Booser's teammates greeted him in the clubhouse afterward with a celebratory shower of whatever was available, ketchup included. He was given two baseballs as keepsakes, though they were hardly necessary.
"It's by far the best moment of my career," he said after the game. "Something I'll always remember."
Talent has rarely been the issue for Booser, whose fastball regularly clocks in the upper 90s. Control, however, was another matter. He spent four summers toiling around in the low minors for Minnesota, never rising higher than Class A. The Twins tried briefly to convert him into a position player. That didn't take either.
Finally, in 2017, Booser walked away. Yet it wasn't just his mind that couldn't let go. A friend couldn't either, pushing Booser to hire an athletic trainer. The trainer began posting video of Booser on social media. The Chicago Dogs, an independent minor league team, saw enough to offer him a shot in 2021.
The Arizona Diamondbacks took a flier on Booser and put 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. About midway through last season, something flipped.
The ball went where Booser threw it more often than not, 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 6⅔ innings before he walked into Worcester manager Chad Tracy's office on Thursday.
Tracy asked Booser if he was ready to throw. Booser said of course and only semi-jokingly volunteered to start. Tracy had another idea. How about pitching in Pittsburgh?
At first, it didn't compute.
"It didn't resonate with him, right?" said Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who was listening in. "Like, 'What?' 'Yeah, for Alex in Pittsburgh,' and that's when he let the emotions go."
Cora thinks Booser has evolved into more than a lefty-on-lefty specialist. While Cora isn't sure Booser will be able to maintain his "crazy" strikeout rate in the majors, he's not worried about Booser's stuff playing.
"We expect him to do big things for us," Cora said.
And if Booser's arrival provides a reminder to the rest of the roster about the importance of perseverance and faith, all the better.
"To make it to the big leagues, there's different ways, right, different journeys," Cora said. "And his is a lot different than a lot of people."