Devern Hansack hopes his dream becomes reality again

As far as professional baseball was concerned, Pawtucket Red Sox pitcher Devern Hansack was out of sight and out of mind after he was released by the Houston Astros in March of 2004, after four seasons in the minors.

Instead of giving it another shot, Hansack returned home to Pearl Lagoon, on Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast. He returned to a country nearly as poor as Haiti, which has Latin America’s lowest standard of living without much financially, anyway, to show for his time as an athlete in the United States.

Hansack changed careers and went to work with a brother-in-law as a lobster fisherman.

“From the beginning, I was disappointed about (being released) and said I’m not going to play baseball any more,” said Hansack. “I was finished. My brother-in-law and I put out some lobster traps. We had almost 600 and were going to fish. I didn’t want to give that up at the time.”

At one time, giving up baseball was something Hansack wouldn’t even contemplate. He started playing the game when he was eight. But baseball in a town like Pearl Lagoon, though, is unlike baseball in most American communities.

“From the beginning I loved baseball and always wanted to try and be the best,” he said. “We used to make gloves out of cardboard. Sometimes older guys would lend us their gloves but you didn’t see that very much. Sometimes we used sock balls so you could catch it with your bare hands.”

Hansack and many of his friends invariably played in their bare feet.

“I remember getting my first cleats when I was about 12,” he recalled. “It didn’t matter. We just wanted to play.”

Hansack, who’s from a family of 10, grew up in a house located outside the center field fence of the field in Pearl Lagoon. Obviously, he was a known commodity because after he was released by Houston, he received several calls from teams on the Pacific Coast asking him to pitch in the Nicaraguan Winter League.

“They kept calling me but I told them I’m not into that … I’m good,” said Hansack. “But after we finished putting out traps I kept getting calls and made up my mind to play again. My brother-in-law got very upset. But I figured I’d try it for a couple of months.”

Eventually, Hansack was invited to try out for the Nicaraguan National Team and was selected. That led to a trip to Holland where, in 2005, he pitched for the National Team in the IBAF World Cup and was spotted by Huver Silva, who was Boston’s scout for Nicaragua.

Silva wangled an invitation for Hansack to 2006 spring training.

“He and Boston gave me a chance,” said Hansack. “They weren’t going to sign me if I didn’t pitch well — in which case I would have gone back home. But if I pitched well, maybe I’d stay.”

Hansack pitched well enough so that Boston’s vice president of international and pro scouting Craig Shipley offered him Josh Beckett’s pocket change - a $3,000 signing bonus.

Hansack, who had been out of pro ball for two years, was sent to Boston’s Double-A affiliate in Portland, where he wound up being named Boston’s Double-A Pitcher of the Year after going 9-7 with a 3.26 ERA and 124 strikeouts in 132 1/3 innings.

Hansack won Game 5 of the Eastern League finals to give Portland its first championship. On Sept. 19, he was called up to Boston where the ex-lobsterman made two starts.

The second outing earned him a line in baseball’s record book because he pitched a five-inning no-hitter and beat Baltimore, 9-0. The game eventually was called because of rain so Hansack became the 24th pitcher in Major League history to throw a no-hitter of less than nine innings since 1900.

“That was the biggest dream of my life because, from the start, we wanted to play in the big leagues,” said Hansack, who last season was called up again by Boston in pitched in three games. “I felt like I was going to cry. But as everybody told me, making it isn’t hard. Getting there and staying there is harder.

“I tried to do my best in spring training to stay — last year and this year. But I came back to (Pawtucket). I just have to keep pitching hard.”

And hope that his dream becomes reality — again.