Pete Frates Center Is A Dream Come True

When I broke into college baseball in the mid-2000s, Boston College baseball always felt like something of a novelty. I was broadcasting in the Cape Cod Baseball League, and its reputation as the premier summer amateur circuit meant it attracted the best collegiate players from around the country. It created a cross-section for baseball factories where West Coast programs like Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton battled alongside traditional Big 12 powerhouses like Texas and Oklahoma. Throw in some Southern players from Florida, Florida State, Georgia and Miami, add a dash of Stanford and UCLA, and watch an explosion of baseball in its truest form.

There were only occasional doses of Northeast players that, with notable exceptions, were temporary replacements. They held spots in early-season games because those aforementioned schools were still playing in the College World Series, and they played with a hope that they'd maybe stick around with another club once the permanent players arrived. Later in the year, some of those names would return after college teams shut their top prospects down for rest.

On those especially rare occasions, though, a New England kid would come to the Cape and play out the whole summer. Those athletes became instant celebrities because they were "one of us," but nobody ever, ever, ever dared to compare Boston College to those other baseball schools.

Fifteen years later, that's all about to change. The process that began at the Harrington Athletics Village with the opening of new baseball and softball stadiums continued yesterday with the revelation and announcement that Phase II will bear the name of Pete Frates.

"Part of what makes a Jesuit education so important and so valuable is the idea that we're going to be obsessed with the formation and development of our student-athletes," head baseball coach Mike Gambino said. "We're going to develop our kids and give our men and women a chance to have success on the baseball and softball field, in the classroom and to develop them for professional (careers)."

The Pete Frates Center will be a 31,000-square foot palace for the baseball and softball programs. It will feature locker rooms and practice space, with hitting tunnels and a turf field. There will be a conditioning area and an area specific to gameday hospitality.

And it's named after the person who made and is making a bigger impact on the world than anyone could have ever imagined.

"When I think about the building, I think about effort and determination," Pete's father, John Frates, said. "When I watched Pete become better at baseball, it pales in comparison to what he's enduring right now. I'm hoping this building embodies what he's about. 'Men and women for others' is so important to our mission because what we're hoping is that nobody has to endure the suffering that he is enduring right now because of ALS."

"Pete is the model for what we want the boys in this program to become," Gambino said. "When you live for others, you can change the world. Pete is showing that. Pete - thank you for everything. We love (the Frates family). It's impossible to put into words what it means to put this into our program."

It's going to be impossible to quantify what this entire process means to the Boston College baseball and softball programs on and off the field. The Eagles always did more with less because they created national-caliber teams with little to no facilities help. Shea Field was an unwelcoming outpost where wind, darkness and cold whipped off of Alumni Stadium or the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. It made everyone fast friends because it was so cramped. It made BC teams tougher because the players embraced it, but it also made sustaining that caliber substantially more difficult.

Adding the Harrington Athletics Village changed the programs' identity overnight, but the second phase is going to shatter the glass ceiling. The Eagles played at Shea Field without on-site locker rooms, and the hitting tunnels were outdoors under Alumni Stadium, making it susceptible to the elements. The teams had early-season practices under the Bubble, so they couldn't take fly ball practice. Those elements meant the team had to treat the first couple of weeks of the season as training in addition to competition, and it likely cost both teams invaluable wins over the years.

All of that changes with the Pete Frates Center. These programs will be able to hit the ground running, with locker rooms and training space located feet from the dugout. They will be able to train in conditioning space that's specific to their needs. It's a testament to everyone that made it happen, from the school administration to the donors to the Yawkey Foundation, which strengthens and continues a link between the Boston Red Sox history and the Boston College Eagles.

"This isn't possible without private support from donors," athletic director Martin Jarmond said. "A special thank you to the donors who contributed to this project and will continue to this project. A special thank you to Jim Healey of the Yawkey Foundation for their unwavering support and of course to John Harrington, who had a vision and has been instrumental in helping all of this come to fruition."

That it will be named after Pete Frates only makes it that much more emotional. Pete is a worldwide icon because he continues to fight ALS, the degenerative disease that is still all but a death sentence for its patients. Putting his name on the building reminds everyone of the greater purpose of the Jesuit mission to help others, and it's a pointed message of an unwavering commitment to eradicate it from our world. It remains an open-ended story because ALS isn't cured, but every breakthrough means Pete's name will forever be tied to disease's impending destruction.

I went back over the past 15 years in my mind yesterday, and I noticed that it was somewhat ironic that I was watching Vanderbilt defeat Michigan for the national championship. I thought about all of those players who played for teams like the Commodores, and I remembered how more and more BC guys were trickling into the Cape Cod League ranks as permanent players.

I talked out loud about how the Eagles came within one game of going to Omaha in 2016, and I mentioned how I believed BC belonged in the NCAA Tournament this year. I thought about how softball won 30 games four times over a five-year stretch and how I believed the team belonged in the NCAA Tournament in both 2017 and 2018.

I thought about Pete Frates, who I first saw play baseball when I was at Malden Catholic and he was at St. John's Prep. I thought about that 2003 game against Peabody that remains the greatest high school baseball game in the state's history. I thought about Pete raising the trophy at the Beanpot and how he helped build the foundation for the 2009 NCAA Tournament berth. I remembered hearing about his diagnosis, which made me believe he would die within five years.

I thought about the long road everyone took to yesterday. Shea Field was the first place I ever covered a Boston College team, and that seems like so long ago. There is still some road left to travel, but it's all within sight. All of those years will have a legacy in Brighton, where celebrations are coming because of vision and belief.

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