Telegraph photo by TOM KING Nashua Defenders pitcher Zach Finkelstein shares a good moment with teammate Hayden Shattuck (17) and others during one of the team's NHCBL playoff games.

Baseball can be a cruel game.

It’s been about nine days since the Nashua Defenders of the New Hampshire COVID Baseball League saw their season come to a crumbling end in the semifinals in Lebanon. Seeing an 8-0 lead disappear in the final two innings certainly had to hurt.

But either way, the end of their season meant the end of a fun era for Nashua baseball.

We all know this summer was a bonus for a group of players on that Nashua team, which was basically what the Coffey Post Senior Legion team would have been, with a few key excptions. Players like Zach Finkelstein, Will Brooks, Varun Lingadal and a few others likely wouldn’t have been able to play under Legion rules. But when Nashua manager Tim Lunn wanted to keep baseball around for a summer, with the Legion requirements he was able to stretch the rules to include a few older players. And they were grateful.

But the nucleus of a 2019 Legion state championship is now in all likelihood finished playing baseball in Nashua for good.

Telegraph Sports Reporter Tom KIng.

And that’s sad.

“It was great to get to play a summer with some guys I didn’t think I’d ever get to play with again,” Defenders pitcher Zach Finkelsteiin said. “It definitely is (the end of an era) but there’s a lot of good guys under us we can pass (the baton) to. … Just teach them that winning attitude. … That was definitely part of myself and Will’s role this year.”

Hey, just like graduation changes high school and college teams, age rules change summer baseball teams as well. Good players come, they play, they move on, and the younger ones move up. Same deal.

But this was a fun group to see. Brooks and Finkelstein play their college ball in Canada, and thanks to the pandemic, that’s shelved for this year, as the fall is their season north of the border. Lingadal will focus on his studies at Dartmouth. Pitcher Henri Boudreau, the former Hollis Brookline standout who was to join Finkelstein at McGill University in Montreal, deferred for a year and will spend the coming months doing volunteer work across the country for AmeriCorps. He’ll instead enroll and play baseball at McGill next fall. Catcher Kyle Hsu is another standout from HB who probably won’t be back.

They were all fun to watch in high school as well, either at Nashua South or Nashua North or other area schools.

“It’s always fun to play with those guys,” Finkelstein said. “I’ve either played with them or against them all the way back to Cal Ripken. We know how each other play the game.

“Specifically playing with Will, I think anybody who has caught me my whole career pitching, Will catches me best in terms of calling a game.

He just knows every single pitch, what are the best pitches to throw. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I shook off Will.

“But really all the guys, it was great to play with them again this summer and unexpcted as you know.”

You see, this was a tight group. They went through the gauntlet a year ago to win a state Legion title. Lingadal had a superb relief performance in that 2019 title game at Holman, but unfortunately was on the mound when Upper Valley rallied in the bottom of the seventh nine days ago.

“It was definitely a tough way to go out,” Finkelstein said, who was brilliant on the mound into the sixth. “It was an interesting season. At times things would go our way, and we definitely struggled.

“We played the best five innings we played all season. And then arguably the worst two innings of baseball we played the whole season those last two. A really drastic swing. Baseball’s a crazy game, and I’ve been on the other end of those games as well. … You’ve got to live with it. In the moment it’s tough, but you get over it because there’s always going to be another chance.”

For the younger ones, yes. But not for the older nucleus of this group, which Finkelstein said will still have that “itch” to get back on the field. But they have to now wait.

That group had the eye-opening experience of playing for the first time with former Souhegan hitting standout Daniel Trzepacz. He’s headed for the University of Delaware and, just our opinion, but you have to think he’ll be better served next summer playing in a college wooden bat league that the Delaware coaching staff will recommend.

But boy,was it fun watching him hit.

“Dan’s a great player,” Finkelstein said. “Definitely the ball comes off his bat differently than most guys you’ll see around here. He’s two years younger than me, I’d seen him play before, but this was the first time I played with him. It’s fun when you have a guy on the team when every time he goes up to the plate, you’re expecting something great to happen.”

Perfectly said. These guys had some special moments over the last couple of years, and the fact their chance to play one more time locally was rescued made it a special summer.

“It was a unique summer,” Finkelsteain said, “and a great time that we had.”

And, as we know, all good things must come to an end at some point. It was defnitely fun watching these guys play while it lasted.

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or@Telegraph _TomK.

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