Rays' Cam Booser overcame alcohol to become indispensable for World Series
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MILWAUKEE – Time has given Cam Booser the rarest of perspectives.
In this moment, he is at arguably his life’s apex, having a dazzling postseason as a valued member of the Tampa Bay Rays’ bullpen, handling every assignment with grace and excellence as they rampaged through the playoffs and landed in this World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers .
Saturday, Oct. 24, he reached that summit by pitching in Game 2 at American Family Field , retiring Christian Yelich with the bases loaded to maintain a one-run lead, like a great lefty reliever should. A global audience tuned in to see him at the height of his profession.
Increasingly, they are learning about his lowest of lows, a gauntlet of injuries and alcoholism that chased him from the game and prompted his 2017 retirement.
That was hardly bottom.
It took a 2020 crashout, when his unsatisfying construction job, his thoughts of professional regret and, most notably, the horror he saw in his parents’ eyes due to his alcohol abuse prompted him to pull out of the spiral.
“I saw the pain I was causing my parents for the first time. And I think that had been visible for a while, but I don't think I actually saw it until one night. I saw them both crying and just kind of hopeless and not really knowing how to help me,” Booser said on the eve of this World Series.
“And seeing the pain in my mother's eyes and my father's eyes, that was enough for me to get down on my hands and knees and just say, ‘Jesus, if you're listening, man, I need help. I need help.’
“And the next morning I woke up and I didn't want to drink.”
Certainly, there was nothing easy or simple about it. Yet recognizing his disease, desiring to stop it and, above all, clearing his head made everything line up.
It took another year for him to sign on a whim with the Chicago Dogs of the independent American Association. And not until 2022 that a scout from the Arizona Diamondbacks decided to take a very low-risk flier on him. A year later until the Boston Red Sox scooped him up for nothing.
And not until 2024, as a 32-year-old, would he make his major league debut with the Red Sox. Yet a maxim he adopted all the while, one that made him see his foggy past with far more clarity, guided him along the way.
“It's really hard to do anything well,” says Booser, “when you're hung over.
“You know what I mean?”
It was not so much the missed chance at fame and fortune that gnawed at Booser when he stepped away from the game. Moreso that it was never baseball that he disliked. Just himself.
And eventually, the way he treated the game, particularly when he lagged on his way up the ladder in the Minnesota Twins system A second chance at it became paramount.
“My biggest hope was that I could respect the game and play the game the way I thought it should be played,” says Booser. “When I was really young, I was very selfish.
“I was always like, why am I here? Why am I not there? I should be there. Why am I at this level? I never really did anything to help myself.
“I just always thought I should be somewhere else. So, when I had time when I was retired and I reflected, I kind of understood that I didn't really play the game the way I thought it should be played.”
And so he got to it, posting a 1.93 ERA in independent ball before a humbling at the Class AA level sent him back to the independent circuits, this time with Lancaster (Pennsylvania) in the Atlantic League.
That prompted Boston to take a flier on him, and in his second season in the organization, got the call to Boston. He got a little run on their Netflix behind-the-scenes series that year.
Yet by that December, they’d traded him to the Chicago White Sox. Who released him at the end of the 2025 season.
Enter yet another Rays reclamation project.
The club knew of his past but also saw potential in his pitch mix. Booser saw a welcoming club culture that would help him flourish.
“I mean, like I said, this is the only club that gave me an opportunity, and it's just funny how perfect of a fit it ended up being,” he says. “You know, they treat everybody here like kings.”
Yet not until after failing to make the team this spring. He eventually earned a call-up and made his season debut June 2.
He went on to post a 1.98 ERA this season, working 41 innings. The postseason has been even more striking: Booser has faced 16 batters. He has retired 14 of them. And given up just one hit, and no runs.
The postseason can be an escalator ride up or down a team’s reliever trust tree. Booser only continues to rise.
“I don't know where we'd be without his contributions this year,” Rays manager Kevin Cash says before Game 1. “He's pitched with so much confidence. The velocities he's shown, to be able to sustain them like he has this year is really, really impressive.
“He's gotten a ton of big outs already, and we're going to need him to get some more.”
That started in Game 1, the latest good day Booser has stacked for six years, his star shining brighter every time.
“And now I’m here,” he says. “So I don't really know how to explain it. But it's been a real, real fun journey.”
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