Beverly's Nancy Frates Narrates MLB's Lou Gehrig Tribute Video

BEVERLY, MA — As Major League Baseball remembers Lou Gehrig on Wednesday the voice of his official tribute video will be a familiar one with a tragic and undeniable link to baseball’s original Iron Horse.

Nancy Frates, the Beverly mother of late St. John's Prep and Boston College captain Pete Frates, narrated the tribute video shown throughout the day on the MLB Network and at Yankee Stadium Wednesday night in honor of Gehrig. Like the pinstripe icon, Pete Frates died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Frates was diagnosed with ALS in 2012 at age 27. He died in December 2019 at age 34.

"All these years," Nancy Frates notes in the tribute, "still fatal, still with no cure."

In his emotional 1939 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium, Gehrig described ALS as his "bad break." Two years later, the man who played 14 straight MLB seasons without missing a game was dead.

"A disease that would destroy his body even if it couldn't touch his heart," Nancy Frates says in the video.

Baseball will honor Gehrig throughout the league on Wednesday with the first Lou Gehrig Day in each home ballpark. Since the Red Sox are on the road, they have set a separate event celebrating both Gehrig and the Frates family for Tuesday night at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox will also sell "Strike Out ALS Pete Frates No. 3" hats with proceeds going toward Pete's Place at the Chelsea Jewish Lifecare Center's Leonard Florence Residence.

On MLB's inaugural #LouGehrigDay we have released a special edition hat honoring the legacy of ALS hero, Pete Frates, and supporting Pete's Place. Learn more & donate: https://t.co/9hSoQd32ba pic.twitter.com/ihNAMtktm2
— Red Sox (@RedSox) June 2, 2021

"Like a hero from long ago whom he was now connected to," Nancy Frates notes, "Pete refused to let the disease take his heart, and left a legacy that would be remembered long after he was gone."

In 2014, Pete Frates helped launch the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which is credited with raising awareness of the disease and more than $200 million for ALS research as of 2019.

Here is the MLB Network-produced tribute, which will run on the network throughout Wednesday:

In the tribute, Nancy Frates called Gehrig "a role model for my family when we faced down our darkest days" and that his moving farewell speech and brave approach to the disease — which is 100 percent fatal — reminded Pete Frates and the family "just how lucky we are to be alive."

She said her message to baseball fans and those who are battling ALS is one directly from her late son himself: "Be passionate. Be genuine. Be hard-working.

"And don't ever be afraid to be great."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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