Around and About with Richard McCarthy: Living the dream? In less than a minute, a new pitcher loses more than just the game

By RICHARD MCCARTHY

For the Gazette

Published: 04-04-2024 3:29 PM

Sometimes I turn on the television for what a friend of mine calls “bubble gum for the mind,” just something to chew on a little bit. Once in a while that expected slight entertainment turns into something more than that, something riveting, and not necessarily in a warm and fuzzy way. That’s what happened this past Feb. 24 at 3:27 p.m.

I knew the Boston Red Sox were playing one of their first spring training exhibition games at 1 p.m. that afternoon, so a little after 3 p.m., I turned on the TV to catch what remained of the game for as long as it held my interest. If you’re not that into sports, don’t let the fact that this story involves a ballgame throw you. This is no more just a story about what happened on the field that day than “A Christmas Carol” is a just a story about a grouchy old man named Scrooge who has a restless night. I’ll make it my business to tell this story so it is accessible and interesting to everyone from the baseball aficionado to the most “sports indifferent.”

The Red Sox were playing an away game that day at the spring training park of the Baltimore Orioles in Sarasota, Florida. The Sox were leading 3-2 going into the bottom of the ninth inning, the last at bat for the Orioles to tie or win the game.

The Red Sox manager, Alex Cora, put the ball in the hands of a 25-year-old pitcher to close out the game. In his three seasons of minor league professional baseball, this pitcher had never played above the level of Class High-A ball, three steps below the major leagues. There are a lot of guys who make it to the minor league level that he had, but never make it all the way up the ladder to play even one game in the major leagues. But there he was.

Now this is where the plot begins to kick up a notch.

The new pitcher was Nathan Patrick “Nate” Tellier, who was born in Boston and grew up in Attleboro, less than 45 miles from Fenway Park, the regular season home of the Red Sox. He watched Red Sox games with his grandfather, and, like a lot of kids in New England, he grew up with the dream of playing for them. Unlike just about every other kid with that fervent hope, on that day he would be given the chance to “live the dream.”

Not only had Nate never gotten higher than High-A ball, but his statistical record there was not very impressive. For those of you who know what it means, his ERA in High-A last season was 7.13, and his minor league career ERA was 5.72. For those of you who don’t know what an ERA is, that record would probably translate to a letter grade of “D.” He did have a fastball with good velocity and struck out a relatively high ratio of batters, but he had some control problems to go with it, walking too many hitters because he couldn’t get the ball over the plate. Nate was also a Cinderella story. He was signed for a relatively small sum of money out of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, a Division 3 collegiate baseball program. He sold Christmas trees back home in the off-season to augment his minor league baseball salary.

What happened that day when Nate Tellier stood on a major league’s pitcher’s mound for the first time happened very quickly, so I’ll tell it to you very quickly.

The first batter hit Nate’s first pitch to center field for a single. Nate’s first pitch to the second batter was a “wild pitch” the catcher had to chase down. When Nate threw his next pitch, the batter sent the ball sailing over the outfield fence for a two-run homer to win the game for the Orioles, 4-3. Game over!

In the time it took for him to throw three pitches, under a minute, Nate’s castle in the sky dream had disappeared in a puff of smoke over the left center field fence. I’d seen inauspicious debuts before, in sports, in the arts, at work, wherever, but nothing as stark and swift as the debacle that took place on that lazy, sunny afternoon in Sarasota.

I spent a little time staring at the television, climbing into the pathos of the moment. Then I resolved to follow what happened to Nate for the rest of spring training, to see when and if he got the chance to pitch again on the big league mound, the opportunity to expel what demons those three pitches had spawned in his head.

Nate did not get that opportunity. On March 11, he was given his outright release from the Red Sox organization. For those of you unfamiliar with baseball jargon, that means his employment was terminated, that he was no longer a professional baseball player.

When I read that, I found myself wondering what it would be like for Nate if he never played pro ball again, what he’d do with the reality that his entire big league career consisted of three disastrous pitches in a spring training exhibition game. Most people don’t get to live their youthful dreams, but what do you do if you earn that chance and your dream becomes a nightmare in less than a minute?

As of the deadline for this column, no other Major League Baseball organization had signed Nate for one of their minor league teams.

There is an expression in sports that someone who spends a brief time in the big leagues was only there for “a cup of coffee.” Let’s hope Nate gets a chance to pour himself more java.

If that doesn’t happen, let’s hope he comes to peace with 3:27 p.m., Feb. 24, 2024.

Amherst resident Richard McCarthy, a longtime columnist at the Springfield Republican, writes a monthly column for the Gazette.