Jacque Harrington was on a run during her lunch break when she received an email from her manager with the subject line, “All-Star Game nomination.”
She had to wait until the end of her run to read the rest.
“I think I ran the fastest two and a half miles of my life,” Harrington recalled to MLB.com on Saturday.
Harrington -- in her third season as a ball girl for the Red Sox -- is one of four finalists to attend the 2025 MLB All-Star Game next week in Atlanta as a part of the All-Star Ball Crew. The other finalists are Adam Crognale of the Phillies, Frankie Boyd of the Tigers and Nate Rosenhaus of the Guardians. Fans can vote on the four finalists, with the two highest vote-getters earning a trip to the Midsummer Classic. Voting, which is unlimited, is open for fans through Tuesday, July 8 at 11:59 p.m. and is available on mlb.com/abcballot.
“It would be a dream come true,” Harrington said. “I can’t even put it into words.”
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Harrington earned a nomination for a particularly sure-handed play that she made on April 21 at Fenway Park. Positioned down the first-base line, she snagged a line drive off the bat of Kristian Campbell that took a wicked carom off the tarp. Harrington handled the tough hop with aplomb, snagging the baseball and tossing it to a fan.
“My first thought was, ‘OK, this is coming at me,’” Harrington said. “My second thought, which was in sync with the first thought, was, ‘Is this going to land foul?’ It was close. The worst thing that you can do is get too excited and the ball barely bounces in fair territory and it’s coming at you. I wanted to make sure that it was going to be a foul ball that I could field.”
It sure was. That’s when Harrington’s natural instincts kicked in. She’s played softball her whole life; most recently, she spent four years as a catcher at the Division I level for Providence.
Still, even with years of muscle memory, Harrington knew that the play would be a challenge.
“Every time a ball is hit when I’m sitting on the first-base side, I’m cramped in the corner,” Harrington said. “There’s not much room to go. I’m very limited with my range of motion. And any time that the ball gets hit off the tarp, I have no idea where the deflection is going to take me. There’s not much room for error.”
But Harrington made it look easy, positioning herself perfectly to handle the carom.
“The crowd loved it,” said Harrington, who took an appropriate courtesy bow after making the play.
A lifelong Red Sox fan, Harrington is now vying for an opportunity to represent her city on the national stage. She’s never been to an All-Star Game, or Truist Park, for that matter.
“It’s just surreal,” Harrington said. “I texted my parents right away and said, ‘You guys are not going to believe what is happening.’ Just a surreal process.”