By TERRY LYONS, Editor of Digital Sports Desk
PHILADELPHIA – Each summer, Major League Baseball takes a little break for the annual All-Star Game and Home Run Derby. This season, the Midsummer Classic, as they love to call it, is here in the City of Brotherly Love. The Philadelphia Phillies are the host and their fans – those with a terrible reputation as being just a tad too passionate – are out in force.
Yes, the same people who threw snowballs at Santa Claus (Eagles) and outwardly boo’d Saint Nick are dressed in Phillies red this week and they’re rooting hard for their hometown heroes. The Philly fanatics are especially pleased with starting pitcher Christopher Sanchez and sluggers Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, although ace Zack “I’m not going to be disrespected” Wheeler declined his late invite to the game when Cincinnati Reds starter Chase Burns came up lame.
The Philly fans were vocal on Monday night when the MLB Home Run Derby (rumored to be on Netflix) took over the stadium and 43,863 spectators jammed their way into gorgeous Citizens Bank Ballpark 41 years to the day when Sir Bob Geldorf staged the greatest rock concert of all-time right down the block at John F. Kennedy Stadium.
That concert – couple with a simultaneously stage show at Wembley in London – raised money in relief of the famine in Ethiopia.
What stands as proof from that incredible 1985 rock show and tonight’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game is that sports and music are two international languages, each with the power to change the world for the better.
Case in point for tonight’s game; At the end of the 5th inning, all those mean and nasty Philly fans will stand. They’ll take a ‘sharpie’ or whatever marker is handy and scribble the name of someone they love, loved or maybe someone losing a battle against cancer and they’ll participate in utter silence when the FOX Sports television cameras come back from a very brief break.
On a brighter note, some will salute survivors while others might thank doctors and nurses, surgeons and oncologists who cured their special someone of the dreaded diseases that all form one, terribly tagged as Cancer.
MLB’s “Stand Up to Cancer” is, by far, the most amazing community event any sports or entertainment entity undertakes. While the JIMMY Fund in Boston is doing its thing every summer by raising some $1 billion at a $75 million clip each year with the Pan Mass Challenge (PMC) with every cent going to cancer research at Dana Farber and some of the other great research institutions of the USA (thank-you Johns Hopkins), MLB will take a broader approach and simply ask everyone in attendance to “Stand Up” in the fight against cancer.
It is an incredibly powerful moment in time for, as once, everything in the world of baseball – STOPS.
How often does that happen? (No labor jokes are allowed).
The moment is so powerful on site at the game that it actually travels through time and space and into the living rooms, TV rooms, bars and saloons to every single fan watching the game come the break between the home (National League) 5th and the visitor’s (American League) top of the 6th inning.
Names are displayed. Everyone has a direct connection.
Everyone.
Memories are etched into a small 8 1/2 x 11 placard and tears begin to flow.
Put simply, it’s impossible not to cry, to weep, to bawl unrestrainedly as you recall a loved one lost to cancer.
Personally, I’ll be thanking my lucky stars and the very research money being collected to have had a Johns Hopkins and Harvard trained surgeon work his magic to use an incredible robotic device and his masterful, steady hands to literally “zip out” what he later told me was “quite a bit of it” from my innards.
My thanks to Dr. Douglas M. Dahl of Mass General.
And to his colleague Dr. Anthony Zeitman of Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute Radiation Oncology and his capable team who brought in the cavalry to be sure the cancer was gone for good. Side note: The cocky MD said, “Listen, you’re going to die … pause … but you’re not dying from this!”
Dr. Zeitman learned his craft at the Imperial College London School of Medicine and is always recognized amongst America’s top doctors. I’ll second the motion and will be thinking of him tonight as I do of him, and Dr. Dahl, almost every day of my life.
I’ll be thinking of Heather Walker of the Boston Celtics who was diagnosed with the rare brain cancer, glioblastoma, in January 2021 and passed away on April 26, 2023 after undergoing several clinical trials but also raising more than $644,000 in her #Move4Heather campaign to raise money for very specific cancer glioblastoma research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston where she had been treated.
Heather was a force of nature and she performed her job with the utmost professionalism, as the Celtics noted in a news release when she passed and later when they dedicated the pressroom at TD Garden to her, “Displaying exceptional courage, she made a point of raising awareness for glioblastoma through the Move4Heather movement, wanting to use her situation to help the lives of others, which was entirely consistent with her character,” the Celtics said. “Through her illness, she was resolute and extraordinary in boosting the spirits of those around her, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and essential awareness in hopes of easing the suffering and saving the lives of others.”
Sadly, I’ve had a few other NBA PR colleagues pass away from various forms of cancer and we remember them all, naming press rooms and celebrating their memories each basketball season. One, “A.T,” has been fighting for what he calls a long journey, fighting the disease in hospitals and cancer centers from Atlanta to Houston.
But tonight, after the 5th inning, I’ll also be thinking of my high school friend, “J.J.”
He played third base for the Holy Trinity Titans, so an “H.T. (or Titans) for J.J. will be on my placard at Citizens Bank Park and I’ll be thinking of his decade-plus more fight against several different forms of cancer. With some, just as we thought he had it licked, another form of the disease would surface.
Most recently, J.J. has been making monthly trips from New York to Los Angeles, California to see Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong – the man who saved his life two times over. In fact, they have a little saying, “I’m one day closer to being cured and I hope that those you love are one day closer, too.”
Tonight, you can participate in any way you choose. Visit StandUpToCancer.org and make a donation of any dollar figure you can afford.
Don’t be afraid or ashamed to shed a tear, but do so knowing “we’re one day closer to a cure.”