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'He's a no-name': How Ryan Brasier went from the Angels to Japan to a key member of Boston's bullpen

The phone call came on a late February afternoon in a small-town Texas shopping center, days after his wife had posed a simple question: “What’s next?”

Baseball had led Ryan Brasier, a long-ago sixth-round draft pick of the Angels, on a meandering journey. He’d traveled several thousand miles, flown across the Pacific Ocean twice, staged a showcase for major-league teams in Arizona — and still came up empty.

Brasier was 30 years old. He had only accrued 41 days of major-league service time. The end had to be near.

But as he wandered jobless in that Wichita Falls, Texas, mall, Brasier declined to move on from baseball.