Pete Frates requests that Obama, Bud Selig put spotlight on ALS

Red Sox manager John Farrell with Pete Frates.Barry Chin/Globe Staff

Pete Frates, the former Boston College baseball captain stricken with the neurodegenerative disease ALS, received both a warm, and a cold, welcome at Fenway Park Thursday afternoon. On the field, he smiled and shivered as his wife, Julie, dumped a bucket of ice water on him as part of the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS, which, thanks in large part to Frates, has gone viral, spawning challenge after icy challenge. At the same time, Red Sox manager John Farrell had a bucket dumped on him by Dustin Pedroia, and David Ross doused Will Middlebrooks. Frates chose Fenway as the site for his challenge because the ballpark holds special meaning for him. As a BC junior, he hit a home run there in the Beanpot Championship against Harvard. Julie Frates, who is expecting the couple’s first baby next month, played a recorded message from her husband, who can no longer speak, walk, or use his hands. In it, he challenged President Obama to give the ALS community a stronger voice in Washington, and called on the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to donate $2 million for ALS research. And he asked outgoing baseball commissioner Bud Selig to make July 4 a day to honor Lou Gehrig, the Yankee great who died of the disease. He concluded: “You each have 24 hours to dump a bucket of ice on your head.”

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