The Boston Herald: Pete Frates Stories Keep Getting Better

BEVERLY — Nobody was offended, or even inconvenienced, when word spread that Mark Emmert would be a late arrival at the big party in honor of Pete Frates.

It’s true that Emmert’s presence was the very reason some 150 people had been invited to this warm, comfortable North Shore home. As president of the NCAA, it was Emmert’s job to personally present the 2016 NCAA Inspiration Award to our buddy Pete, the former Boston College baseball captain whose fight against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — Lou Gehrig’s Disease — transformed him into a rock star.

But the NCAA contingent got a late start yesterday morning because of snowy weather in Indianapolis. An event that was supposed to start at 2:30 would go off around 4.

Again, no problem.

For here was a chance for a whole lot of people — friends, relatives, neighbors, media, local political leaders and the entire Boston College baseball team — to rub elbows and trade stories about Pete Frates.

Look, we’ve all taken a crash course in Pete Frates 101. We know he was diagnosed with ALS in March 2012. We know he turned the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge into a global phenomenon. We know he and his wife, Julie, have a little girl, Lucy. We know he’s a diehard Boston sports fan, showing up at Gillette Stadium as recently as Monday night to watch Tom Brady lead the Patriots to a 30-23 win against the Baltimore Ravens.

But did you know Pete’s name isn’t even Pete? I learned this little fun fact from Pete’s aunts, Margaret Frates Fraser and Mary Frates Cloyd. With some time to chill as the NCAA people were making the trip from Logan Airport, Margaret and Mary revealed that their nephew’s legal name is John Peter Frates III, except that, well, let’s have Pete’s dad pick it up from there.

“I’m John Peter Frates Jr., and my father is John Peter Frates Sr.,” he said, pointing to an elderly gent on the other side of the room who was happily waving back. “But even when Pete was 2 years old, he hated John Peter III. We tried calling him different nicknames, like J.P. and Trip, and he hated those as well. We took him to an inn in North Conway once and introduced him to this French-Canadian lady as John Peter, and she said, ‘Oh, Jean-Pierre!’ And it was tantrum city when he heard that.”

And so he’s been Pete Frates ever since.

Did you know Pete once used a fake news story about a broken water main to have a baseball game cancelled? And that he did it because of the Bruins?

“It was when the Bruins were in the Stanley Cup final in 2011,” said Rick DeAngelis, longtime coach of the Lexington Blue Sox of the Intercity League. “We had a game that night, and the Bruins were playing, and all our players went to Pete and asked him to do something. And he came to me.”

A call was made to Chuck Andre, coach of that night’s opponent. Everyone was in on the ruse. For bookkeeping purposes, the game was called because of that pesky water main. And then everybody went to a bar to watch the Bruins.

And then there was the story from July when we learned Pete’s health took a serious turn for the worse.

Let’s have Pete’s mother, Nancy, take it from there.

“We went into MGH and he had sepsis,” she said. “Sepsis is probably the biggest enemy you could possibly have when you have ALS. Jenn, Pete’s sister, came over and dropped her girls off and said she was going to go and talk with Pete. She said, ‘I’m going to go tell him he doesn’t have to worry about Julie, that he doesn’t have to worry about Lucy.’ So she goes in to see him and she’s spilling her guts out, and she’s crying and all that, and all of a sudden Pete opens his eyes and starts typing on the computer screen with his EyeGaze.”

It turns out Pete responded to his sister with a tweet.

“All my peeps, thx for da love,” Pete typed. “im doin fine. med weed and netflix. oh ya, for all the worrywarts out there, never forget how effn tuff i am.”

Nancy paused.

“Pete came back from the sepsis,” she said. “And he has been almost 100 percent infection-free ever since. And here we are.”

And there we were. At a few minutes before 4 p.m, a loud “Shhhhhhhhhhh!” was heard throughout the house as the NCAA contingent arrived. Speeches were made, an award was presented.

Perhaps the most poignant comments were delivered by the local congressman, Rep. Seth Moulton, who told the gathering, “At a time in our country when a lot of people are looking for inspiration, we have a great source of inspiration right here.”

Now it was time for Nancy Frates to reach deep into her vault of Italian heritage — maiden name D’Alfonso — and yell out, “Food is open in the dining room! Everybody eat!”

And everybody did eat.

And the stories kept flowing as we learned more and more, and still more, about a guy we thought we already knew.

Article here.