Pete Frates' daughter throws out first pitch at Fenway on Lou Gehrig Day (2024)

BOSTON —

The daughter of the late Pete Frates, a champion for ALS awareness who inspired the "Ice Bucket Challenge," threw out the first pitch before Sunday's Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

Lucy Frates, 9, delivered the ceremonial first pitch in honor of her father on Lou Gehrig Day, which was commemorated throughout Major League Baseball to raise awareness and research funds for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — which is also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Pete Frates, a former Boston College baseball captain, was diagnosed with ALS in 2012. The Beverly native died of the disease in December 2019 at age 34, but not before he raised millions of dollars for ALS research and awareness.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Ice Bucket Challenge.

"Just to see her out there — her vibrancy, her joy — she is the epitome of the joy that her father used to bring to the world, and now she's the light," Nancy Frates said of her granddaughter and son during the television broadcast of the Red Sox game. "Having her is so wonderful for our family and seeing her grow up to be this adorable girl is everything."

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The Red Sox also honored several other ALS advocates before Sunday's game against the Detroit Tigers. There is no known cure for ALS, which weakens muscles and impairs physical functioning.

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Sunday marked MLB's fourth annual Lou Gehrig Day. Gehrig, considered to be one of the greatest first basem*n of all time, had his career cut short by ALS. The disease forced him into retirement in 1939 at the age of 36 and he died just two years later, just 17 days shy of his 38th birthday.

MLB Network produced a special Lou Gehrig Day tribute video that is narrated by Sarah Langs, a baseball reporter and researcher who was diagnosed with ALS in 2022.

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The league also recognized members of the baseball community who died of ALS over the past year, including former Boston Globe baseball writer and Calgary Flames assistant general manager Chris Snow.

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