Geezer glory

 So there was this guy in Boston last night who came on to pitch with two out and a man on second in the seventh inning against the Toronto Blue Jays, and struck out the next batter to end the inning.

Just another mundane baseball moment in baseball's most mundane month, right? Happens every day, right?

Except the guy got an ovation from the Fenway Park crowd as he walked off the mound.

Except Red Sox manager Alex Cora greeted him with a handshake when he reached the dugout steps.

And why was this?

Because the guy's name is Rich Hill.

Rich Hill, see, is 44 years old. And when Cora called him in from the pen in the seventh, 2024 officially became his 20th consecutive season pitching in the bigs.

A native of Milton, Mass., he's a local boy who threw his first major-league pitch for the Chicago Cubs in 2005. George W. Bush was in the White House. The White Sox were actually a real major-league team. No one, or hardly anyone, had heard of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram or a pile of other sites in the social media dung heap, so no one got on the Great Interwhatsis to make fun of this new guy for the Bearcubs.

Oh, yeah: And the Toronto Blue Jay he struck out to end the seventh last night, Daulton Varsho, was nine years old.

Across the next 20 summers, Hill didn't actually pitch for every team in the majors, but that was probably just luck. He did pitch for 13 of them, after all. 

He pitched for the Cubs and the Orioles and the Indians and the Angels. Pitched for the Yankees and the A's and the Dodgers and the Twins. Pitched for the Rays, and the Mets, and the Pirates, and the Padres.

And for the Red Sox, of course. This is his fourth go-around with them.

Last night, he became the oldest player to appear in an MLB game in five years. And the seventh inning was just an hors d'oeuvre. In the eighth, Cora sent him back to the bump again, and all Hill did was retire the side in order on a couple of ground balls and another  K. 

"He's like a baseball version of Tom Brady right now in New England," said Blue Jays manager John Schneider, who, an eon or so ago, was Hill's catcher in the Cape Cod League.

Something like that.