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Will be honored at Fenway Park June 29; has volunteered as Metro Team Coach for 35 summers since Baseball Showcase began in 1988
Advocate Staff Report
Malden High School baseball coach Steve Freker apparently knows a good thing when he sees it. In 1988, the first year that a Baseball Showcase was offered by the Mass. Amateur Sports Foundation/Bay State Games, he jumped on board to volunteer coach the Metro Team at Boston College.
Some 35 years later, he never left, and this year will once again be volunteering his services at the statewide round-robin tournament that has become one of the Bay State Games’ most popular sports of the 37 now offered. For his lengthy and valuable years of service, Coach Freker has been selected for induction into the 2023 Bay State Games Hall of Fame.
On Thursday, June 29, Coach Freker, along with fellow inductee and Bay State Games founder and Boston Marathon Race Director Dave McGillivray, will be honored, fittingly, at Fenway Park, on the field before the Red Sox-Miami Marlins game.
“It is a great honor and I have enjoyed every minute of it,” Coach Freker said of his many years of service. “The Bay State Games is one of the most valuable and rewarding programs with which athletes of all ages can be involved.”
Coach Freker, a lifelong Malden resident, is in his 41st year of coaching high school sports and 38th year of coaching Division 1 high school baseball. In the past he has been inducted into the Malden High Golden Tornado Hall of Fame (2007), Massachusetts State Baseball Hall of Fame (2016), Intercity League Baseball Hall of Fame (2011) and, just this year, the Malden Catholic Bro. Dan Cremin Lancer Athletics Hall of Fame (2023).
