BOSTON – Four young Chicago White Sox pitchers all had something in common before they even came to Boston this weekend. All four were from Massachusetts and they were teammates on a major league club together at Fenway Park for the first time.
And within a 24-hour span, Sean Burke, Mike Vasil, Jared Shuster and Shane Smith each pitched off Fenway’s mound as major leaguers for the first time.
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“It’s awesome,’’ said Burke, a 25-year-old right-hander from Sutton who started Sunday in Chicago's 8-4 victory.
“These are three guys I knew even before the White Sox, too,” he said. “To kind of all meet here to be able to do it in the same weekend is really cool.”
Burke played in high school against Vasil, a reliever who pitched in Saturday’s walk-off loss.
“It’s really special," said Vasil, a 25-year-old from Wellesley. “It’s one of those things where you don’t always get to experience that. It’s not like I’ve had a crazy journey compared to some other guy’s stories.
“But it’s definitely a full-circle moment,” he said. “You grow up a fan of the team and you find your way back here on probably one of the more special weekends in the entire city.”
Shuster, a 26-year-old lefty reliever from New Bedford, was called up after Friday’s series-opening loss and got four outs on Saturday. He’s been to Fenway as a big leaguer before, but never had a chance to pitch in the ballpark.
“Perfect timing,’’ he said. “This has definitely worked out on the schedule as a trip I wanted to make. … It’s awesome, not a lot of big leaguers are from Mass., so it’s cool to have all four of us on the same team and to show the guys coming up that anything’s possible.”
Smith, a 25-year-old from Danvers who started Saturday, had a chance to pitch at Fenway in just his fourth major league start. Having so many family members watch made the outing special.
“That just means a lot to us,” he said. “Just to be here in Fenway and the debut was awesome and everything. Just to have my family here makes it even more special.”
He got a bit choked up when summing up his thoughts.
“Pretty tough to put it into words what the impact is, but its special,” he said, pausing.
For Burke, it was a chance for the person that introduced him to baseball — his grandmother Pam — to see him work on Fenway’s mound.
“She used to babysit me when I was little,” he said. “My parents would both work when I was 2-, 3-years old, and she would prop me up on the couch and roll baseballs back to me to throw back to her.”
But what jersey was she, a lifelong Red Sox fan, wearing on Sunday?
“A White Sox today,” he said, smiling.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb