Greater Meaning On Fenway's Fabled Lawn
April 28, 2025 | Baseball, #ForBoston Files
The moment meant more than the result.
The romance behind the game of baseball couldn't have scripted a better possible ending to Sunday's ALS Awareness Game between Boston College and Miami. The day began with a 45-minute rain delay splashing Fenway Park's historic greenery in the same wetness from Saturday's second game, but nine innings boiled down to a sunshine-hued moment for the BC record books.
Miami led, 3-2, after slugger Daniel Cuvet wrapped an eighth-inning home run around right field's Pesky Pole. Reminiscent of Vince Cimini's hero-altering homer from a year ago, it erased Colin Larson's fifth-inning solo shot into the BC bullpen area. Brian Walters was on the hill, but after inducing two groundouts, a Kyle Wolff single offered two-out life. Walters - the younger brother of former Hurricane and current Cleveland Guardians pitcher Andrew Walters, possessed an electric arm capable of pushing triple digits on a speed gun, so the single damaged his armor enough to give Birdball a chance.
The potential hero? Cimini, the lifelong New York Yankee fan. He entered the series with a four-game hitting streak, and his run scored in Friday's series opener was BC's lone run. He'd arguably saved Birdball's at-large bid with a walkoff-winning groundball to third against UMass-Lowell, and his timing on Walters' 1-0 offering echoed a ping off of Fenway's odd-shaped edifice.
The ball sailed through the Boston sky and reached the deepest part of the ballpark. The crowd, ever excited to experience another memorable finish to an ALS Awareness Game, craned its collective neck towards the white ball circling through the clouds. Centerfielder Michael Torres looked back to check for padding - lest he collide like a Fred Lynn highlight from years past - but he quickly realized that he wouldn't need the warning track. Cimini had gotten as much of Walters as he was going to get, but there was no joy in Chestnut Hill available for the fly ball settling into his glove.
The romance behind baseball wouldn't allow BC to celebrate its 2025 ALS Awareness Game on the Fenway Park surface. Instead, Miami won 3-2 on a day awash in the very things that make the Birdball program so very special to the greater community.
"It means a lot to me when people refer to this as the ALS game, not the 'Fenway game,'" said head coach Todd Interdonato. "This is the Pete Frates game. This is for awareness all over the world. The Red Sox give us Fenway as a platform, but without Pete and his mission, none of this is even possible. Our guys have a really good understanding, and I think the guys that are in the program understand the value of [playing this game]. They do a really good job of passing that message along to the first-year guys, and I think our first-year guys really understand and appreciate why we play here."
Fenway Park remains the holiest cathedral to a sport built around reverence for ancient history. It outlived any of its contemporaries aside from Wrigley Field and is one of five active Major League Baseball stadiums erected prior to 1980. It's 50 years older than Dodger Stadium and boasts significantly less comfort than the plush seating at anyone's retro-classic home field. Its walls ooze history, and it's one of the few parks capable of turning ballplayers, coaches and staff members into little kids.
Less than 10 percent of Minor League Baseball players ever play in the majors, and less than 500 of the 64,000 college baseball players around the country receive the call to even get drafted into pipeline systems. The likelihood of playing in a jewel box like Fenway is about as likely as getting struck by a bolt of lightning, which is why a moment like Larson's home run drew emotional cries from BC's faithful fan base.
"We felt like Colin was a good matchup for [Miami starting pitcher Tate DeRias]," Interdonato explained, "and again, Colin hitting a home run in this environment, in this ballpark, for this cause, as a first-year freshman, it's just a really cool moment that's going to likely get overlooked because of the result."
The series result against Miami may have damaged BC's overall shot at an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, but discussion over the Eagles and their place within the Atlantic Coast Conference's postseason race was secondary on a day engulfed in the ALS Awareness Game's greater purpose. For both teams, the message remained centered on Frates and an Ice Bucket Challenge that occurred when most of the players weren't in high school.
"I think it was 2012 when my wife and I came here for a football game," Interdonato explained. "My wife is a Clemson graduate, so we came up here for the Clemson-BC game. We'd heard about Pete being diagnosed, and we met him in what I now know is the Comm. Ave. Garage. I had no idea where I was in 2012 - I was just a guy living in South Carolina with a Clemson grad for a wife, who knew some people at BC - but we met Pete in the garage. I said to [then-and-current assistant coach Greg Sullivan] that the guy who was diagnosed looked [normal]. He was a good-looking 23-year old or 25-year old guy, and you'd never think about it.
"We saw him again around 2016 or 2017," he emotionally continued, "and it had nothing to do with BC baseball. I just met him by chance, so when we moved here, we felt like we needed John and Nancy's blessing to carry the torch. They did that, and we had a catalyst last year in John West. John's dad passed away when he was [a teenager], and he handled that situation better than anybody, regardless of their age. That brings a personal side to it, and that reality connects to our players. I was texting with John overnight, and he sent me this long text that had me crying at 4:30 in the morning. As long as [things like that] stay personal, our guys will appreciate [this game]."
BC returns to Fenway Park on Tuesday afternoon for the Beanpot's consolation game against UMass. The rare back-to-back appearance at the home of the Boston Red Sox starts at 4 p.m. before Northeastern and Harvard play for the championship game in the nightcap. On Wednesday, the Eagles return to the Harrington Athletics Village for a 4 p.m. game against Maine before Stanford makes its inaugural ACC trip to Boston for this weekend's three-game series.
Miami led, 3-2, after slugger Daniel Cuvet wrapped an eighth-inning home run around right field's Pesky Pole. Reminiscent of Vince Cimini's hero-altering homer from a year ago, it erased Colin Larson's fifth-inning solo shot into the BC bullpen area. Brian Walters was on the hill, but after inducing two groundouts, a Kyle Wolff single offered two-out life. Walters - the younger brother of former Hurricane and current Cleveland Guardians pitcher Andrew Walters, possessed an electric arm capable of pushing triple digits on a speed gun, so the single damaged his armor enough to give Birdball a chance.
The potential hero? Cimini, the lifelong New York Yankee fan. He entered the series with a four-game hitting streak, and his run scored in Friday's series opener was BC's lone run. He'd arguably saved Birdball's at-large bid with a walkoff-winning groundball to third against UMass-Lowell, and his timing on Walters' 1-0 offering echoed a ping off of Fenway's odd-shaped edifice.
The ball sailed through the Boston sky and reached the deepest part of the ballpark. The crowd, ever excited to experience another memorable finish to an ALS Awareness Game, craned its collective neck towards the white ball circling through the clouds. Centerfielder Michael Torres looked back to check for padding - lest he collide like a Fred Lynn highlight from years past - but he quickly realized that he wouldn't need the warning track. Cimini had gotten as much of Walters as he was going to get, but there was no joy in Chestnut Hill available for the fly ball settling into his glove.
The romance behind baseball wouldn't allow BC to celebrate its 2025 ALS Awareness Game on the Fenway Park surface. Instead, Miami won 3-2 on a day awash in the very things that make the Birdball program so very special to the greater community.
"It means a lot to me when people refer to this as the ALS game, not the 'Fenway game,'" said head coach Todd Interdonato. "This is the Pete Frates game. This is for awareness all over the world. The Red Sox give us Fenway as a platform, but without Pete and his mission, none of this is even possible. Our guys have a really good understanding, and I think the guys that are in the program understand the value of [playing this game]. They do a really good job of passing that message along to the first-year guys, and I think our first-year guys really understand and appreciate why we play here."
Fenway Park remains the holiest cathedral to a sport built around reverence for ancient history. It outlived any of its contemporaries aside from Wrigley Field and is one of five active Major League Baseball stadiums erected prior to 1980. It's 50 years older than Dodger Stadium and boasts significantly less comfort than the plush seating at anyone's retro-classic home field. Its walls ooze history, and it's one of the few parks capable of turning ballplayers, coaches and staff members into little kids.
Less than 10 percent of Minor League Baseball players ever play in the majors, and less than 500 of the 64,000 college baseball players around the country receive the call to even get drafted into pipeline systems. The likelihood of playing in a jewel box like Fenway is about as likely as getting struck by a bolt of lightning, which is why a moment like Larson's home run drew emotional cries from BC's faithful fan base.
"We felt like Colin was a good matchup for [Miami starting pitcher Tate DeRias]," Interdonato explained, "and again, Colin hitting a home run in this environment, in this ballpark, for this cause, as a first-year freshman, it's just a really cool moment that's going to likely get overlooked because of the result."
The series result against Miami may have damaged BC's overall shot at an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, but discussion over the Eagles and their place within the Atlantic Coast Conference's postseason race was secondary on a day engulfed in the ALS Awareness Game's greater purpose. For both teams, the message remained centered on Frates and an Ice Bucket Challenge that occurred when most of the players weren't in high school.
"I think it was 2012 when my wife and I came here for a football game," Interdonato explained. "My wife is a Clemson graduate, so we came up here for the Clemson-BC game. We'd heard about Pete being diagnosed, and we met him in what I now know is the Comm. Ave. Garage. I had no idea where I was in 2012 - I was just a guy living in South Carolina with a Clemson grad for a wife, who knew some people at BC - but we met Pete in the garage. I said to [then-and-current assistant coach Greg Sullivan] that the guy who was diagnosed looked [normal]. He was a good-looking 23-year old or 25-year old guy, and you'd never think about it.
"We saw him again around 2016 or 2017," he emotionally continued, "and it had nothing to do with BC baseball. I just met him by chance, so when we moved here, we felt like we needed John and Nancy's blessing to carry the torch. They did that, and we had a catalyst last year in John West. John's dad passed away when he was [a teenager], and he handled that situation better than anybody, regardless of their age. That brings a personal side to it, and that reality connects to our players. I was texting with John overnight, and he sent me this long text that had me crying at 4:30 in the morning. As long as [things like that] stay personal, our guys will appreciate [this game]."
BC returns to Fenway Park on Tuesday afternoon for the Beanpot's consolation game against UMass. The rare back-to-back appearance at the home of the Boston Red Sox starts at 4 p.m. before Northeastern and Harvard play for the championship game in the nightcap. On Wednesday, the Eagles return to the Harrington Athletics Village for a 4 p.m. game against Maine before Stanford makes its inaugural ACC trip to Boston for this weekend's three-game series.
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