ALS fighter's battle is personal for Chris Sale
To Red Sox ace Chris Sale, the mere mention of ALS (known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) stops him in his tracks, because it takes him back to his childhood, when he lost his grandmother due to the unforgiving disease.
At that time in his life, Sale’s mother worked for a construction business that operated out of the home of his grandmother and great grandmother.
Despite that he was just 6 years old at the time, Sale remembers the impact his grandmother’s death had on his family.
“During the summers, I was out of school, and my mom was working at their house, so I was there every day,” said Sale. “I remember when it happened, it was, you know, obviously a big shock but [losing my grandma], it was a lot. It was a lot on my mom. We lived eight houses down from my grandparents.
“I was really young, but I knew that it had this big meaning behind it. When I was that age, I didn't really know a whole lot about it, other than the fact that Nana was sick and she was going. I was a baseball player, so Lou Gehrig … it was one of those things that had a lot of connections for me. Especially being young. So it was crazy.”
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Fast forward to August 2021, when Sale pounced on the opportunity to make a difference with someone living with ALS.
It was a Thursday afternoon game at Fenway Park, and the Red Sox invited Chris Snow, a former Red Sox beat reporter for The Boston Globe and now an assistant general manager for the NHL’s Calgary Flames, to throw out the first pitch. His wife Kelsie, son Cohen and daughter Willa joined him on the field.
Snow had turned 40 the day before, and it was his son Cohen’s 10th birthday.
In 2019, Snow was diagnosed with ALS, which had taken his father from him less than a year earlier and other relatives on his father’s side of the family years before that. Doctors told Snow he probably had about a year left to live.
So Snow, a native of Melrose, Mass., had already beaten that timeline when he threw his Fenway first pitch. As MLB celebrates Lou Gehrig Day on Friday, Snow has outlived initial projections of how much time he would have left by nearly three years. Snow thinks that the reason he has defied the odds so far is due to an experimental gene therapy drug called Tofersen.
Given that he had long since lost the use of his right hand, Snow proudly threw the Fenway first pitch left-handed on that sun-splashed day in 2021. As sweat dripped down his face as he unleashed the pitch, Snow was a profile in courage.
As Sale took in the emotional ceremony at Fenway -- which was two days before he would make his comeback from Tommy John surgery -- he knew that he needed to make a personal connection with the Snow family.
Nine days later, the Snow family -- vacationing in New Hampshire at the time -- was back at Fenway via an invitation from Sale.
Sale met with the family in the players’ parking lot after the game, his second start back from Tommy John surgery.
“When Chris asked to meet, I could tell right away that he wasn’t just being charitable,” Snow said. “He told us about his grandmother and thanked us for, in his words, ‘changing the world.’ And he meant it. He asked to stay in touch and to get together the next time we were in town."
In a tweet posted just after the meeting, Snow provided more details of what Sale said to him:
“I just wanted to meet to say thank you. You are literally changing the world. I just pitch. Do you mind if we get a picture? I’m going to send it to my mom. She is going to freak.”
Kelsie has her own special memory of the encounter.
“I remember distinctly [Sale] telling Cohen, 'Your dad is a real hero. I just throw baseballs.'" Kelsie recalled earlier this week.
In 2022, as Sale fought for his pitching career, which had suddenly become a pileup of injuries, Snow sent him texts of encouragement.
“When he had bad-luck injuries -- the comebacker, the bike accident -- I just tried to encourage him,” Chris Snow said. “Because I knew he’d feel the weight of the city. I simply wanted to tell him that there were better days ahead. Because anything you can recover fully from -- be it an injury or illness -- isn’t that bad. It’s temporary.
“As a family, we are happy every time he pitches well. One of us will often read out his stat line after a start. It’s funny that we’ve only met once in person, but we ride the rollercoaster with him start by start.”
When Snow first started the trial, he didn’t know if he was getting Tofersen or a placebo. Four years later, it seems pretty clear.
“I wanted to meet him because he’s the first person to ever do something like this with the treatment that he’s getting,” said Sale. “What he’s doing is groundbreaking enough as it is. I wanted to show my respect. Some other 6-year-old’s grandma is going to get this. That kid is going to get their grandmother for a little bit longer because of what he’s doing.
“I wanted to obviously thank him and meet him. He's a beautiful person. A great family man. It meant a lot to me. He says it meant a lot to him. It meant more to me.”
Even with the Tofersen, Snow has had some touch and go moments. In December, Snow was in ICU for close to two weeks, and on life support twice.
In typical Snow fashion, he recovered. And once off the ventilator, he vowed to be home for Christmas, and he was.
By March, the Snow family was at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Fla., during a family vacation. Though their schedules didn’t coordinate, Snow and Sale texted during the visit.
“He had a pretty rough winter,” said Sale. “Obviously, I’m using very light words. But when I’m going through Spring Training, from my end [trying to come back from injuries], and I heard from him, it was just very good for perspective. To get a text from him, it just sits you down [and gives you an appreciation]. I obviously appreciate my relationship with him because it just reminds me of my grandmother and reminds me of those times with her.”