Carter Doran ’25 gets in the game with the Red Sox
“Surreal.”
That’s how Carter Doran ’25 describes working for the Boston Red Sox this spring.
The Natick, Massachusetts native, and four-year starter on the Clark baseball team, has been a Sox fan his entire life, with Fenway Park his mecca. So when he secured a position with the team in premium sales/group hospitality this season — serving as liaison to groups of fans, giving tours of the ballpark, sharing Red Sox and Fenway history with visitors — he was beyond thrilled.
“It’s like I’ve made it my home now,” he says. “My whole life, I’ve taken a step back to see things from a different perspective, and now I’m seeing Fenway in ways I’ve never seen it before.”
Doran, a business management major with an economics minor, found his Fenway position through the Handshake job portal at Clark, but he didn’t come to the Red Sox without experience. After his sophomore year, he worked for a company that organizes tournaments at a baseball complex in Northborough, Massachusetts, where he not only did operational work but also coached two national all-star teams of youth players.
At Fenway, he’s led groups of fans on tours atop the “Monster” — the park’s legendary left-field wall — and onto the field where they can watch batting practice. He’s discovered hidden corners of the park “that I didn’t even know existed.” If a group of fans rents a suite at Fenway, he makes sure that their food and beverage needs are taken care of.
“I’m taking you onto the Monster; I’m giving you a history lesson. And throughout the game, I’m checking in on you,” he says. “I just enjoy working with people to make their experience better and make a good memory for them.”
Doran, a power-hitting center fielder, recalls being recruited at Clark during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and visiting the campus in the fall of 2020 after students had been sent home.
“I just walked around with my mom, and we couldn’t go into any of the buildings, see a classroom, or watch a practice,” he recalls. “But I said, ‘I’m going here.’ ” (Doran would eventually participate in a proper admissions tour of campus and wore his Clark Baseball shirt to signal his allegiance to the school.) He has racked up an impressive career at Clark, including posting a .340 batting average last year, with 48 hits, 46 runs, and 29 RBIs.
Doran hopes to continue his employment with the Red Sox beyond the season, noting that others on the full-time staff started out as seasonal employees. While he’s at it, he’s also pursuing his MBA at Clark through the 4+1 Accelerated Master’s Degree Program and does private catering from his home in Natick.
With last week’s playoff loss to Wheaton, Clark was knocked out of the NEWMAC tournament, which may have capped Doran’s playing career, but not his involvement with baseball.
“Growing up, my mom always told me that baseball is never going to leave my life, and I can tell it’s not going to,” he says, before adding with a laugh, “She even said to me, ‘One day you’re going to work for the Red Sox.’ And I was like, ‘No, Mom. That’s never going to happen.’ ”
