SWAMPSCOTT — For most people, a moment on a professional baseball field at age 67 is ceremonial — a first pitch, maybe a wave to the crowd.
For Evan Katz, that moment represented more. It was a culmination of dreams and hard work that brought him on the field — not just for a ceremonial pitch, but for a line of his in the box score.
Katz, a Swampscott resident, didn’t follow a typical path to the pros. He didn’t grow up playing organized baseball, never suited up for a little league game, and never played in high school or college. In fact, he said, as a kid, he wasn’t even much of a fan of recess.
What he did have was a lifelong love of the game. A love that began, as it does for many Boston-area kids, with trips to Fenway Park.
“I’d take the subway there and go to games whenever I could,” Katz said. “Ever since I was a little kid in the 60s.”
Katz grew up in Brookline, within spitting distance of the Green Monster. Despite that early love of baseball, it wasn’t until much later in life that he stepped onto the field himself. At 45, he joined an adult amateur baseball league, marking his first real experience playing the game he had always loved. What began as a new hobby quickly turned into something deeper.
“I started going to a baseball camp in Florida, staffed by major league coaches. And I really wanted to become a better player,” Katz said. “I listened to what the coaches had to say.”
Around the same time, Katz began writing about baseball with the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), where he contributed biographies toward a project that documented the lives of every player to play the game professionally.
Those stories, Katz said, were often about players who spent years in the minor leagues, spending most of their careers chasing that one big opportunity. And that research left a lasting impression.
“One of the things I learned … is the incredible intensity and determination that they brought to the field and they brought to their pursuit of baseball,” he said. “Hearing these stories over and over again, never letting obstacles get in their way … it just really inspired me.”
That inspiration led Katz to set a goal that might have seemed unrealistic to many: pitch in a professional baseball game.
After more than a year of making calls and building connections, he found an opportunity in the Pecos League, an independent minor league. He built up a strong relationship with Pecos League Commissioner and Founder Andrew Dunn, who connected him with the White Sands Pupfish.
At this point, Katz was more than 60 years old. But when he joined the Pupfish, he was ready to realize his dream. It didn’t go the way he hoped. His playing time was brief, he faced two batters in his first game, and didn’t record an out.
So, while others may have been satisfied with a dream accomplished — Katz wasn’t done.
“I didn’t want to retire from professional baseball with an infinite ERA,” he said.
So he kept going.
“I started when I was 60 and it took me 18 months to pitch in the Pecos League. It was exciting, the players were very supportive, but I look back on it and I felt like I was like a guest. I came and I just pitched to two batters. It was a rewarding experience, but I think when I came back at 67, it meant more,” Katz said.
In 2023, Katz joined the Austin Weirdos, a Pecos League team that had been forced to play an entire season on the road after losing its home field. The team had a depleted roster — only 11 players — and Katz, then 67, was given the start in his first game.
But before Katz flew to Texas, he pitched a couple innings in the North Shore League for a tune-up.
“Before I went out to pitch against a bunch of 20-year-olds at the age of 67, I was an assistant coach at Manchester-Essex and the head coach was BJ Weed, who played for the Angels in the minor leagues. I told BJ I was getting ready to go out to pitch in the Pecos League again and I needed experience pitching to 20 year olds. BJ was coaching a summer league team in the North Shore League with guys in their 20s,” Katz said. “I went and pitched for BJ’s team at 67 and my catcher was Jacob Grant, who went to Beverly High School. I pitched for 2 2/3 innings against 20-year-olds and didn’t give up a run. My tune up for pitching in the Pecos League was pitching in the North Shore League. I felt like I belonged. When I went out to Alpine Texas in 2023 with the Austin Weirdos, I walked out on that mound and I felt like I belonged. I made it to the fifth inning and recorded 12 outs. I got my ERA down from infinity to 29.25.”
He pitched a full five innings, becoming one of the oldest players to start a professional game. The score — a lopsided loss — didn’t matter as much as the moment itself. Katz had done it. He had taken the mound in a professional game decades after most careers ended. And, he had gotten guys out.
After that season with the Weirdos, Katz wasn’t done with baseball. He turned his attention toward coaching. He joined the North Platte 80s as a bullpen coach, alongside Manager Todd Everleth. With just three years of experience as an assistant coach at Manchester-Essex and a couple years playing in the Pecos League, Katz remembered joking with Everleth that he, in his words, “might be the least qualified coach in baseball.”
The North Platte 80s won 27 games and advanced to the second round of the playoffs. Katz said that he was proud of that accomplishment, and really enjoyed the relationships he was able to build with the players — some of whom he thinks will be moving on to higher levels of professional baseball.
As a fan of time travel movies, when asked if he’d go back in time to start baseball earlier, Katz said his path was the right one for him.
“I guess if I had an opportunity, it might be interesting to find out, but by being a professional coach at 69 and being a latecomer to baseball, doing it as a retiree, the experience I had in North Platte 80s with the manager and the league commissioner and the players was so rich. One of the reasons the experience was so rich and fulfilling is because I was 69 years old,” Katz said. “If I go on a different path and I’m a college player and try to make it professionally, I don’t know if I ever would have had this experience. I’m perfectly content with the way things are sequenced. I pitched professionally in my 60s and am one of the oldest pitchers to ever start a minor league game at 67. That, to me, was such a fascinating moment. If I had been 24, it might have been interesting, but I’m not sure it would have had the dimension.”
Now 69, Katz has stepped away from coaching. But he’s not done with baseball. Now, he says, he’s hoping to share his story with the community. It’s a story, he believes, anyone can learn something about.
“It’s a story about baseball, but it’s not about baseball,” he said. “What I learned and what I share are skills and strategies that apply to all walks of life.”
