Cambridge’s Oldtime Baseball Game, played every summer at St. Peter’s Field near Fresh Pond, is free, benefits a nonprofit and features college, high school and celebrity players decked out in colorful retro uniforms.
The game coming Aug. 20 is even more special: It’s the first in a 32-year history with teams including three former Red Sox players – Rich Hill, Lou Merloni and Jake Peavy.
Hill, a Milton pitcher who played for a record 14 teams during his 21 seasons in the big leagues, makes his second appearance at the game – returning after stepping in last year to replace Brock Holt, also of Sox fame, after the game was delayed a day by rain. He’d pitched just three weeks earlier in his final year in the big leagues, and his presence contributed to overflow crowds.
Infielder Lou Merloni, of Framingham, played nine seasons in the big leagues, six with the Sox, and went on to work as an analyst for NESN. This will be his 13th appearance at the Oldtime Baseball Game; he was the 2022 recipient of its Greg Montalbano Award, named after the late Northeastern University pitcher and Sox minor-league prospect who appeared in the game in 1997 and ’98. The award is presented to a former participant who exemplifies Montalbano’s spirit, competitiveness and good nature.
This is the first Oldtime Game for Peavy, winner of the National League Cy Young Award in 2007 as a member of the San Diego Padres during his 15 seasons in the big leagues. (He pitched parts of two seasons with the Sox and was a member of Boston’s 2013 World Series championship team – and bought a Duck Boat from the team’s championship rolling rally and had it shipped to his home in Alabama.)
The game benefits The Boston Home, a nonprofit helping adults with advanced neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis. Longtime Red Sox vice president of scouting, development and integration Gus Quattlebaum, who was diagnosed with primary progressive MS in 2021, returns in 2026 as an honorary coach.
Also on the field this year is coach Lindsay Berra, a former University of North Carolina softball player and granddaughter of the late Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra; and players Oliver Henke and Stefan Alexandrov, from the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School baseball team that made it to this year’s MIAA Division 1 baseball tournament semifinals. They head this fall to Swarthmore and Wheaton College, respectively.
The Oldtime Baseball Game was founded in 1994. The replica uniforms were added four years later and represent virtually every era in baseball history, from the 1890 Boston Beaneaters to the 1969 Seattle Pilots, and acknowledge long-ago teams such as the St. Louis Browns, Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Athletics; Negro League teams such as the Kansas City Monarchs, Detroit Stars and Cleveland Buckeyes; and 20th century minor league teams including the Hollywood Stars, Wichita Falls Spudders and Roswell Rockets.
The game includes two Red Sox uniforms worn by the late Jim Corsi, who played in the Oldtime Baseball Game in 2002 and ’03. One will be worn by Corsi’s son, Joey.
The Abbot Financial Management Oldtime Baseball Game, 7 p.m. Aug. 20 at St. Peter’s Field, 99 Sherman St., in Neighborhood 9 just east of Fresh Pond, Cambridge. (Rain date: 7 p.m. Aug. 21.) Free. Bring a beach blanket or chair to camp out along the foul lines. Wahlburgers provides concessions.
This post was written from a press release.
