TROY – Eric Beaulac said it was “the most meaningful inning I’ve pitched in my life.”
It happened on Friday night, nine years after the Troy native retired from professional baseball.
Pitching for charity, Beaulac started and retired the side in order on nine pitches in the Tri-City ValleyCats’ 9-6 Frontier League loss to the Washington Wild Things before 2,511 fans at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium.
Beaulac, a 36-year-old former Mets and Orioles farmhand, came out of retirement to pitch the one inning to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
“This whole night was like a fairytale to me,” Beaulac said. “It really was. It’s something that I’ll never forget.”
It began a bit ominously. There was a strong wind blowing out to left, reminding Beaulac to keep the ball down. Then he got a pitch-clock violation warning before his first pitch when the clock expired. He was not penalized because the Frontier League is still in its grace period adopting the new rule.
“I pitched nine years ago,” Beaulac said with a laugh. “The pitch clock wasn’t around. So it’s different. It’s a different game now and it’s different strategy and it’s different things you have to accommodate. Pitch clock being one of them, bigger bases, just some different rules. But it was fun because I never had that experience before. So I’ve got to have at least one (pitch-clock violation) in my career.”
After that, Beaulac threw a ball on his first competitive pitch since 2014. His second pitch was a strike, getting applause from a supportive crowd that included his parents, his sister who drove up from White Plains, and his girlfriend.
Following that, Beaulac quickly retired Washington’s Nick Gotta on a lineout to left, Tristan Peterson on a grounder to third and Wagner Lagrange on a popout to short.
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