Nick Ahmed’s had the kind of career most players dream of. The East Longmeadow native has played more than a decade in the majors, won two Gold Gloves and is the Arizona Diamondbacks’ all-time leader in games played at shortstop.

But now the 34-year-old finally gets to check one of the biggest remaining items off his baseball bucket list: playing at Fenway Park.

This week Ahmed finally got a chance to take the field at Fenway Park after more than 900 career games over 11 MLB seasons. Having spent his entire career in the NL West, first with the Diamondbacks and now with the San Francisco Giants, Ahmed’s teams rarely came to Boston and the one time they did in 2016 he got hurt a few weeks before and missed out.

“Kind of a childhood dream fulfilled,” Ahmed said prior to Wednesday’s game. “I grew up watching the Red Sox on TV, my dad brought me to games here in the summertime and fell in love with the game, watching the Red Sox and coming here. I have a lot of great memories.”

This week also allowed Ahmed a chance to reconnect with one of his oldest friends in the baseball world. Red Sox hitting coach Peter Fatse, who grew up in neighboring Hampden, played with and against Ahmed in high school and later the pair spent a season as college teammates at UConn.

“I hosted his overnight, he ended up coming to school and we’ve been like family ever since,” Fatse said. “We’ve been able to keep in touch. We were in each other’s weddings, so we’re very close.”

That Ahmed made it to Fenway at all this week was particularly special given everything he’s been through over the past six months.

Last September Ahmed’s tenure with the Diamondbacks came to an abrupt and unceremonious end when he was designated for assignment and released to clear space for rookie Jordan Lawler. Ahmed was forced to watch from home as his ex-teammates made an improbable run to the World Series, and after no big league offers came the ensuing offseason he was forced to settle for a minor league deal with the Giants.

That deal did come with an invitation to spring training, which was all Ahmed needed. By the time camp broke Ahmed had earned a spot on the Giants’ Opening Day roster and has since established himself as the club’s starting shortstop.

“I got the game taken away from me essentially and wasn’t able to keep doing what I love,” Ahmed said. “I had to figure out how to get better and come into spring training and have an opportunity to make a team, and I went out and did that.”

None of that came as a surprise to Fatse, who has coached with and worked alongside Ahmed during the offseason for much of the past decade.

“For him to bounce back the way he’s bounced back and to go into a camp where he has to basically earn and win a spot, for him to come in prepared, healthy, and execute, I think speaks volumes about who he is as a person,” Fatse said. “A lot of people might not know the struggles he went through physically to get back on the field and get healthy, but to persevere through that and to do it at a high level was really impressive.”

Though Ahmed said he would have preferred his first game at Fenway played out differently — he went 0 for 3 in a 4-0 Giants loss — getting to play in front of so many friends and family from home was a special experience.

After facing his baseball mortality, it’s not something he takes for granted.

“To be 34 years old and playing major league baseball and to be a kid from a small town in Massachusetts standing here in Fenway Park, it’s incredible,” Ahmed said. “God has been very good to me, I’m very blessed, I’ve been able to do what I love for a really long time and I’m going to keep doing it as long as I can and as long as my family is enjoying it with me too.”