BOSTON — Lou Gehrig was forced into retirement due to his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, in 1939.
“Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” Gehrig said at the time. “I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.”
Seventy-five years later, Gehrig’s legacy resurfaced in Boston College baseball thanks to one of the program’s finest, Pete Frates. He quickly cemented himself as a stud on the diamond during his playing days, but what he left behind is much deeper than baseball.
“This is the ALS game. This is the Pete Frates game. This is for awareness all around the world,” BC head coach Todd Interdonato said. “The Red Sox give us Fenway as a platform, but without Pete and without his mission, like, none of this is even possible.”
Sunday afternoon marked the 13th annual ALS Awareness Game for BC (21–23, 9–15 Atlantic Coast), as it welcomed Miami (27–18, 12–9) to Fenway Park for the final game of the weekend series to celebrate Frates and his family’s contributions to the awareness they’ve raised for ALS over the past decade.
Come game time, the light Boston drizzle settled and the tarp was removed to unveil the rich history of Fenway’s infield, ready for play to begin. But only one team could walk away with the win.
Brady Miller shined brighter than any sunlight that came out to grace the 1,505 fans in attendance, as he tossed seven scoreless innings. But all it took was one swing of the bat to change the trajectory of the game, and Miami went home with a 3–2 victory and the series sweep.
“For a first year kid to come into this environment with this much emotion…and for him to just kind of get settled in and look like himself, was really good,” Interdonato said. “That was a really positive outing that’s going to go overlooked because of the result.”
Miller had some luck to kick off the game. With a runner threatening at third base in the top of the first, McNulty fielded a grounder at short and immediately fired it to third for the tag out.
The freshman left-hander continued to absolutely shut down the Hurricane offense, only allowing three hits until a jam in the seventh inning, which he also managed to escape.
“[I] felt like Brady being left-handed had a pretty good blueprint from what A.J. put on the field on Friday,” Interdonato said.
After Patrick Roche led off the bottom of the first with a groundout, a single from Josiah Ragsdale, a dropped pop-fly allowing Jack Toomey to reach, and a six-pitch walk for Gunnar Johnson loaded the bases for Adam Magpoc.
A walk for Roche scored a run for the Eagles, but a lineout from Kyle Wolff ended in outs for both him and Magpoc, putting an end to what could’ve been a big offensive inning from BC.
The scoreboard was posted with zeroes for the next three innings. Miller’s performance was matched by Miami’s Tate Derias, who packed a punch with his 6-foot-4, 188-pound build.
Colin Larson earned the Eagles an insurance run with a line-drive shot over the right-field wall that won BC a 2–0 lead in the bottom of the fifth—the freshman’s second home run of the season and ninth run.
“Colin hitting a home run in this environment, in this ballpark, for this cause,” Interdonato said. “You know, as a first-year freshman, it’s just a really cool moment that’s going to go overlooked because of the result.”
Three innings later, Miami’s offense still had nothing going for it, but Jake Ogden’s lead-off single on the ninth pitch of his at-bat in the top of the eighth provided a sliver of hope for the Hurricanes.
Max Galvin built off of that—getting lucky himself—and popped one up into shallow right, reaching first on an error from Magpoc.
“I thought we did a poor job of communication on the ball that fell into right,” Interdonato said. “I thought we did a poor job there.”
Then Daniel Cuvet stepped up to the plate—Miami’s leader in home runs and RBI—and sent a ball that seemed to be a routine fly out soaring into the overcast sky.
But with the help of the wind, and the shortest porch in the MLB, the ball hooked around Pesky Pole and over the glove of Jack Toomey to put the Hurricanes out in front 3–2.
“As soon as that ball went up, and, you know, this ballpark, and you know it had a chance, and unfortunately, it snuck out,” Interdonato said.
The Eagles had nothing else to offer with the six outs they had remaining, getting doubled up in the eighth and posting a mere single from Wolff in the ninth.
But outside of an unfortunate loss, Interdonato felt Sunday was bigger than baseball, and hoped to have that overarching sentiment passed along to the rest of his team.
“I told our guys on the bus before the game, this is an unbelievable experience,” Interdonato said. “This is something that you will remember the rest of your lives. But don’t forget why you get this experience, right?”
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