Why the Red Sox play Northeastern Huskies college baseball team in MLB Spring Training

The Boston Red Sox open Spring Training games on Friday.

Except they won't be playing another MLB team. They're playing the Northeastern Huskies, a college team.

It's not unheard of for a major league team to do this in the spring, but Boston is certainly one that does it more often than others.

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Why are the Red Sox playing Northeastern Huskies?

This is an annual tradition for the Red Sox and Northeastern, which is down south getting games in while it's cold and snowy in the New England region.

Northeastern University is located not far from Fenway Park, so it's a cool partnership.

It builds some goodwill for the Red Sox, and it also gives them a potentially lower-intensity game environment before taking on other MLB teams.

College teams have won in these matchups before, although certainly not often.

Northeastern has begun this season 0-3, including allowing 21 runs to Iowa and 10 runs to Grand Canyon, so it could be a long Friday for the Huskies.

Their players, though, will surely never forget the day they got to take on a major league ballclub.

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