Playing under the bright lights at Fenway Park, Boston College baseball was hungry for the 2006 Beanpot title. But to beat Harvard in the final, the Eagles needed their leaders to step up.
Pete Frates, BC ’07 and the team’s eventual captain, did exactly that, going 4-for-4 with a home run. With Frates leading the way, BC cruised to a 10–2 Beanpot victory.
That’s just what captains do.
A far more formidable opponent came knocking on Frates’ door years later, one that remains undefeated to this day. This time, his team returned the favor.
Ten summers ago, the Eagles rallied around Frates to support his battle against ALS. Today, nearly five years after Frates’ passing, he and his movement remain the program’s heartbeat.
“Pete is Birdball,” former BC pitcher John West said.
It’s a movement that may never have gotten off the ground were it not for Frates’ rejection of self-pity. After his March 2012 diagnosis, Frates refused to wait around as the terminal illness set in.
He got to fighting right away, with his team right there with him.
“That’s when the directive was given,” said Mike Gambino, BC’s head coach from 2011–23. “I remember him saying, ‘We’re not gonna feel sorry for ourselves. We’re not gonna wallow, we’re gonna raise funds and raise awareness.’”
Gambino took those words to heart.
Led by its former head coach, Frates’ fight became BC’s fight. Shortly after his diagnosis, the program inaugurated its first annual ALS Awareness Game. The words “Strike Out ALS” became a staple of the Eagles’ uniforms and merchandise. Gambino even created a director of baseball operations position just for Frates, before consulting with then-Athletics Director Gene DeFilippo.
“By [Gambino] doing all those things, it was just a constant acknowledgement of Pete’s suffering and his impact on society in general,” John Frates, Frates’ father, said.
Even as the Eagles joined the mission, Frates remained its driving force.
“He told us what to do,” John Frates said. “He was the leader extraordinaire and he was the one who laid out the playbook.”
That playbook included a simple gesture: dumping a bucket of ice-cold water over one’s head. One by one, connection by connection, a movement followed. Eventually, through the wealth of relationships Frates had accumulated at BC and beyond, the world had mobilized against ALS like it never had before.
“All of a sudden, a disease that no one ever talked about, no one knew anything about, was underfunded, had no awareness—became the center of the biggest social media storm, arguably, of all time,” West said.
By August 2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge had grown into a fight much larger than just Frates.
“He knew that it wasn’t ever going to be about him,” Gambino said. “This was about the families, the people coming after—how do you make it better for the people coming after you.”
The viral social media sensation swept across the globe in the blink of an eye, raising approximately $115 million in the process. Those funds directly contributed to the creation of a new therapeutic ALS drug.
But the Ice Bucket Challenge wasn’t only a fundraising machine. To Frates’ father, the act was symbolic of something bigger.
“When you dump cold ice water over your head—unless you’re a man of steel—you’re going to feel pain, feel discomfort,” John Frates said. “You’re going to react because of the cold chilling water, but to be honest, that’s only a fraction of time. And an ALS patient lives like that all the time—in that constant pain.”
As a 12-year-old in Shrewsbury, Mass., West was painfully familiar with that image. So when the challenge first erupted, he took special notice.
“I can remember the first time I heard the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge on TV,” West said. “I was with my dad. He was on the back end of his fight against ALS, and we were sitting in the living room, and all of a sudden you just hear ‘BC baseball captain Pete Frates’ Ice Bucket Challenge.’ And at this point I was 12 years old and had been seeing this for almost five years now of my life and how awful and ruthless it is.”
Seeing Frates fight, along with his team’s support, ultimately contributed to West’s BC commitment.
“When you see an institution like Boston College back and support someone going through such a horrendous disease like this and helping them with their movement, it becomes a community that I think anyone would want to be a part of,” West said.
Today, Frates’ name hangs over the program’s training facility. His retired No. 3 sits on the outfield wall at Eddie Pellagrini Diamond. And his mission lives through the team he once led.
“Because of Pete, and because of John and Nancy, it’s always going to be at the forefront of everything the program does,” Gambino said.
The Frates family has become Birdball’s de facto first family. Both BC ’80, Frates’ parents John and Nancy have shown their support at events like 2023’s NCAA Tournament selection show watch party and current head coach Todd Interdonato’s introductory press conference.
“It’s hard to put in words how much they mean to us,” West said “They’re everything.”
With their continued backing, the movement’s next step is to end the disease for good. This summer’s anniversary is the perfect opportunity to revitalize the fight, according to Gambino.
“We’re 10 years out now and we sort of need the next push,” Gambino said. “Money doesn’t last forever, and I think it’s a crucial and critical time to further the mission.”
Despite a decade of progress, the cure still belongs to the future.
“The batting average for ALS is zero,” John Frates said. “No one gets a hit off of it.”
Frates didn’t either. But by leading the Ice Bucket Challenge, he’s helped bring that first hit closer and closer.
That’s just what captains do.
“Someday, because of Pete’s efforts, there’ll be a breakthrough,” John Frates said. “There has to be.”
