February 26, 2021

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

Brian Fraser was an inspiration to all those who worked with him, knew him, knew of him or heard about him.

For close to two years, he waged a public battle against this nasty disease, leukemia. He died at the too-young age of 26 at Brockville General Hospital on Feb. 25.

"So we wished Brian a Bon-voyage with a Sens win. Brian Fraser passed away tonight after a hard fought battle. We know he is at peace and looking for ways to watch down on us,'' his father Rick said in a Twitter post.

On Feb. 5, Fraser saddened us all with this tweet: "There's some very harsh truths that are really starting to become prevalent here. Dying. Your otherwise perfectly functional body and mind melting! That's tough.''

Fraser had worked for several years as a technical producer at radio station CFRA in Ottawa and was a big fan of the Ottawa Senators, Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos.

"My favourite Red Sox player is Xander Bogaerts but I still can't believe they traded Mookie (Betts),'' he told me more than a year ago. "My favourite Expos player will probably be Pedro (Martinez) followed by Vladdy (Guerrero) but I'm only really familiar through highlights. My dad's favourites were (Andre) Dawson, (Gary) Carter and (Ellis) Valentine.''

Fraser regularly updated his battle on Twitter and received heartfelt video messages along the way from Bogaerts and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

"I'm absolutely blown away. That's so amazing,'' Fraser said when he saw Bogaerts' message from Aruba.

When the Red Sox traded outfielder Andrew Benintendi to the Kansas City recently, he tweeted, "I'm really sad. Benintendi was the guy.''

Our condolences to the Fraser family.