Peter Frates (December 28, 1984 - December 9, 2019) was an American college baseball player for the Boston College Eagles and an activist for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He is credited with helping the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge gain national attention, which raised approximately $220 million for ALS research.
Early life
Pete Frates was born on December 28, 1984, in Beverly, Massachusetts. He grew up playing many sports, including baseball, hockey, and football. Frates attended his father’s alma mater St. John’s Preparatory School in Danvers, Massachusetts, and was an honor roll student there. At St. John’s Prep, he was a four-year member of the varsity baseball, hockey, and football teams, and he served as captain of all three teams during his senior year. Before graduating in 2003, Frates was named an all-star in the Catholic Conference in both baseball and football, and helped St. John’s Prep win two conference championships in both sports. Additionally, Frates was awarded Catholic Conference Honorable Mention recognition in hockey, and he also won St. John's Athletic Director's award in his senior year.
College career
Upon graduating high school, Pete Frates matriculated to Boston College to continue his baseball career, where his parents, John and Nancy, met. At Boston College, Frates played outfield from 2004 to 2007 and was elected team captain during his senior year. As a junior and a senior, Pete finished first on the team in home runs. In his senior year, he also led the team in both stolen bases and sacrifice hits, with nineteen and eight, respectively.
In his junior year during the Baseball Beanpot championship game against Harvard, Frates went 4-for-4 in a 10-2 win at Fenway Park. In that game, Frates hit a home run into Fenway Park’s bullpen, a double, and three RBIs. Additionally, in a single game against Maryland on April 14, 2007 during his senior year, Frates went 4-for-6 and recorded eight RBIs, including a grand slam, a three-run home run, and an RBI double. Frates’ eight RBIs set the Boston College baseball record for the most RBIs recorded in a single game, which still stands as of 2019.
ALS advocacy
Diagnosis
Upon graduating from Boston College in 2007, Frates continued playing baseball in the German Baseball League in Hamburg. After returning back to the United States from Germany, Frates started to notice some changes about himself. He said that “it all started with some twitching in my upper body and arms,” but later on his performance on the baseball field started to decline.
In 2011, Frates was hit by a fastball on his left wrist while up at bat during a men’s league baseball game. He noticed that his wrist, although not broken, was not healing properly on its own; he claimed that “it was painful and weak, and it was starting to prevent me from doing things as simple as buttoning my shirt.”
Additionally, Frates said “my day-to-day work schedule was being thrown into flux. Normally on the road by 6 a.m., I was now lucky to leave my apartment by 10 a.m.- often stopping for naps in the rest areas of the highway.” Even after seeing a neuromuscular specialist, a hand specialist, and a neurologist, as well as undergoing months of testing, no diagnosis was able to be made.
One night, Frates decided to do some research of his symptoms on his own while watching October baseball with his father, and he discovered that his symptoms lined up with those of an ALS patient. After months of additional testing, Frates was officially diagnosed with ALS on March 13, 2012 at the age of 27.
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
After receiving his diagnosis, Frates claimed that "it became abundantly clear that my calling was to raise ALS awareness and to fight for a brighter future for all those affected today and those yet to come."
Although Pete Frates did not invent the Ice Bucket Challenge, his ALS activism helped it gain national attention and turn into a viral phenomenon. Throughout the summer of 2014, over 17 million people participated in the challenge to raise money to find a cure for ALS, and roughly 2.5 million people donated to ALS causes. Participants in the challenge included numerous celebrities, such as Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Julian Edelman, Red Sox owner John Henry, Charlie Baker, Marty Walsh, Matt Ryan, David Beckham, Lebron James, Lady Gaga, George W. Bush, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Anna Wintour, Ethel Kennedy, and Angela Merkel. The Ice Bucket Challenge was even used as an answer on “Jeopardy!.”