BOSTON -- David Ortiz said none of the players knew in advance Monday afternoon that Boston Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington would be on the field, signing a nationally recognized figure to a new deal.
The contract was a honorary one-day deal, the kind the Sox gave Nomar Garciaparra a few years back when they wanted to claim he had retired as a member of the organization.
But this one went to a Boston ballplayer who hardly needed the connection to the Red Sox to add to the attention he has received for spearheading the fight against a disease that has ravaged his own body: Pete Frates, the former Boston College star whose "Ice Bucket Challenge" has raised tens of millions of dollars for ALS research.
Frates had been unable to attend in Fort Myers when Mike Gambino’s Boston College team played the Sox in their annual exhibition, where the Sox quickly embraced the idea of having each of their players wear a Frates No. 3 jersey just like their BC counterparts.
Monday afternoon, the Sox emerged one by one bearing those jerseys to present to Frates, whose wife, Julie and other family members gathered around his wheelchair. That was planned. The contract signing was a surprise.
“Everything that Pete has gone through, there’s been a pretty strong connection made here with the Red Sox,” Sox manager John Farrell said of the former BC captain who once hit a memorable home run in the Fens. “I thought it was a great gesture on the part of Ben [Cherington] and the organization. Just great to see the attention he’s bringing to his own challenge and what it’s meant really worldwide.”
