PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — There are so many reasons why Cam Booser shouldn’t be here.

A horrifically broken left leg, a twice-fractured back, a torn labrum and Tommy John elbow surgery. Bad grades that cost him his spot at Oregon State. A poor attitude that made waste of his five years pitching in the Minnesota Twins system, during which he never got above Class A.

And then were the really troubling issues.

Marijuana use that led to a 50-game suspension. A severe, seven-days-a-week alcohol problem that took over his life. Bouts with deep depression.

“I had some dark days,” Booser said, “to where I didn’t really want to see a tomorrow.”

With no answers seemingly to be found, Booser decided something had to change. At age 25, he quit the game he thought he loved but hadn’t been committed enough to.

The separation wasn’t easy. The adjustment at times was rough.

He moved back home to the Pacific Northwest, found comfort being around his family and started working as a carpenter. Eventually, he addressed his demons and found God.

Still, there was a void.

It took a series of serendipitous occurrences, but 3 1/2 years after leaving the Twins he was back in pro ball. Sort of.

What started with a gig arranged by a friend to pitch for the independent league Chicago Dogs in July 2021 led to a remarkable and emotional celebration in April 2024 when Booser made a most unlikely major-league debut, at nearly 32, with the Boston Red Sox.

Now Booser, 33, can’t wait to see what each tomorrow brings.

“I’m beyond blessed that I, to this day, still get to play baseball,” he said.

He spent most of 2025 with the Chicago White Sox and is in camp with the Tampa Bay Rays on a minor-league deal, hoping to earn a spot in their bullpen.

With his personal life restructured, his love for the game rekindled and his career resurrected, now there are so many reasons why Booser should be here.

‘Very dark days’

To fully appreciate his inspiring journey requires revisiting the depths, which he is open, candid, and at times emotional in discussing. (His story also was featured in episode three of the recent Netflix documentary on Boston’s 2024 season, “The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox.“)

Though Booser considers 2017 the start of “the downhill slope,” he admits he had been headed that way for a while.

“A couple years before that was kind of when the alcohol abuse started, and that was compiled with all the injuries and just being a young, dumb kid, unfortunately,” Booser said.

“A lot of that led to very dark days. You start drinking with your buddies, and then not so many guys can drink seven nights a week, so then you do it yourself. Then it just got to a point where I kind of lost the purpose.”

A lot was wrong.

“It was injuries, it was alcoholism, it was depression, it was not knowing who I was outside of the game anymore,” he said. “It was just everything.”

Booser went home after being released at the end of the 2017 season but muddled, and drank, his way through several months. “Things,” he said, “didn’t get a whole lot better immediately.”

In being around his parents and sisters, and getting a construction job in Seattle installing acoustical ceilings with a firm his dad worked for, Booser eventually found a new path, a welcome chance to “put one foot in front of the other.”

But the biggest challenge was to stop picking up the bottle.

“If my family hadn’t stepped in and just been the overwhelming support system, I don’t know that I would have ever turned around.” Booser said. “I remember the first time I ever saw the pain that I was causing them. It was enough to get me to think about stopping, but the addiction side of it just had such a strong hold of me.”

He tried AA meetings but felt it wasn’t for him. Eventually, he addressed things a different way.

“I remember being in my room, getting on my hands and knees next to the bed and crying my eyes out,” Booser said. “Just feeling so weak and not in control of my life.

“I was just like, ‘God, if you’re listening, whatever you want me to do, I’ve got to stop drinking. I have to. It’s affecting my family. It’s affecting me. It’s affecting everybody I know. So it’s time for me. I can’t do it myself. I’ve tried. I can’t. So if you can help me stop drinking, I’ll do whatever you want.’”

The timing of things is a bit blurry but the outcome quite clear, and Booser sayid he has been sober now for six years.

“That was my coming-to-Jesus moment,” he said. “And he is a constant in my life ever since.”

An unexpected turn

Booster acted out of desperation. He came away convinced someone, somehow, was listening.

“A couple days later, I got a phone call to start working in baseball,” he said. “It all just transpired to where it kind of felt like I was supposed to do this again.”

The connections and coincidences that led from that call to Booser stepping on the mound at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park on April 19, 2024 was the product of a stunning series of fortunate events.

First, a family friend who ran a training facility in Puyallup, Wash., needed a hand with summer camps and asked if Booser was interested.

He gave it a try, initially fighting “the biggest imposter syndrome,” worrying he’d pass on his bad habits, then realizing how much he liked being around the game again.

Next, Booser, who said he hadn’t picked up a ball in years, started giving lessons to young kids. Just playing catch was a hurdle, as he also had dealt with the yips at the first end of his career.

Now he not only could throw the ball where he wanted, there also was no pain. He marveled at how good his left shoulder, arm and whole body felt.

His mind started racing. He kept working at the facility and would stay late to throw balls into a net.

More people kept showing up in his life to help.

A friend who was also giving pitching lessons, Leif Strom, saw Booser throwing and coaxed him to step back on the mound.

Booser still has the Feb. 21, 2021 video on his phone — the first pitch clocked at 98 mph.

“That,” he said, “is when I started thinking about a comeback.”

Strom had a friend, Kyle Rogers, who was into player development (and now does so for the New York Mets) and agreed to start training Booser for a return to pro ball, impressed with both his physical tools and the perseverance and resiliency that would serve him well.

“Cam,” Rogers said, “has shown that no hurdle is too daunting to overcome.”

Rogers posted videos of Booser throwing on social media, which led to another break. A coach who Booser played for in a summer league years earlier saw the clips and offered to reach out to a friend — former Red Sox third baseman Butch Hobson, who was managing the Dogs.

Booser was back in the game — “an opportunity I didn’t really ever foresee again” — and didn’t care a bit that he was playing in a small stadium in Rosemont, Illinois.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, if this if all I get, this is all I get,’“ Booser recalled. “I just want to go back and play. I just want to have fun.”

He did well enough with the Dogs to take the next step, getting back to affiliate ball when he was signed by the Diamondbacks in February 2022.

The amazing journey had a few more twists, such as being released in July from the Double-A team (though he met his future wife, Jessica, during that time) and ending up back in indy ball.

But Booser took charge from there. He signed with Boston in February 2023 and had some confidence-building moments during a solid season at Triple-A Worcester.

He showed well the next spring in big-league camp.

And a few weeks into the 2024 season, he found himself somewhere he never, ever expected to be — pitching in the big leagues.

“I didn’t do things the right way when I was younger, unfortunately,” he said. “I didn’t pay the game the respect it deserved. I didn’t pay my teammates the respect they deserve. I just always thought I had stuff figured out. So, once life rocked me in the mouth a couple times I had to learn that we don’t really get to call the shots.

“I was very fortunate to have any sort of an opportunity to be able to play baseball again. And I’m just blessed and grateful that I’m able to play to this day.”

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