COTUIT, Mass. — The Kettleers’ annual scrimmage with the Lexington Blue Sox on Sunday afternoon marked the 20th year the two teams faced off.
Lexington head coach Rick DeAngelis, who played right field for the Kettleers in 1968, wanted to bring his team back to a place that means so much to him every year, for a reason bigger than the game.
“This is one of the most special places in the entire world,” DeAngelis said. “There’s no place quite like it.”
The exhibition tradition was initially played as a way to raise money for the Pete Frates Family Foundation.
Frates, the man behind the “Ice Bucket Challenge,” played college baseball at Boston College and was a former Blue Sox player. He was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease when he was 27.
DeAngelis remembers the former Eagle as a fighter and someone who made any team he played for a family.
“Whether it was a baseball diamond or a hockey rink, he created the idea of baseball being a brotherhood,” DeAngelis said. “That’s a special bond, and we continue that on today.”
Frates died in 2019 at the age of 34, and DeAngelis makes sure to keep his lessons vocal every season.
“This idea of ‘get to know your teammates,’ not just on the baseball field, so that you can trust them and they can trust you,” DeAngelis said of the biggest lesson he learned from his former player. “You build your own brand of unique chemistry and it changes from year to year.”
The game serves as a semi-Opening Day for the Kettleers, and it’s a “friendly scrimmage” that general manager Bruce Murphy looks forward to every year.
“People are excited to just get baseball going,” Murphy said. “It’s important for us to get a scrimmage in.”
As soon as the last out is recorded, the two teams take a photo together, and DeAngelis and Murphy exchange four words before they head off: “See you next year.”
