BOSTON — Rich Hill came on as a reliever for the Boston Red Sox on Thursday night, becoming the only active player to appear in a major league game in each of the past 20 seasons.
“There's a lot of people to thank for getting to this point,” the left-hander said as he struggled to control his emotions in the locker room after the 2-0 loss to the Blue Jays. “Doing the work, the effort to come back… I've always loved doing it. I'm fortunate to be able to do it.”
Hill replaced starter Kutter Crawford with two outs in the seventh inning and struck out Toronto center fielder Daulton Varsho with a runner on second to end the inning. Hill, 44, who is in his fourth stint with the Red Sox, received a nice ovation from the crowd and a handshake from manager Alex Cora when he returned to the dugout.
He returned for the eighth with Boston trailing 2-0 and retired all three batters he faced with one strikeout and two groundouts.
Hill joined Tim Wakefield as the only pitchers to appear for the Red Sox at age 44 or older. Hill, a native of Milton, Massachusetts, pitched in college in Michigan and has appeared for 13 different major league teams.
He became the oldest player to appear in a Major League game since the Mariners' Ichiro Suzuki (45) in 2019, and the oldest pitcher since the Rangers' Bartolo Colon (45) in 2018.
“You've got to love him,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider, who was Hill's catcher in the Cape Cod League more than two decades ago. “I laughed when he came in. … I give him all the credit in the world for continuing to do it. He's like a baseball version of Tom Brady right now in New England.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
