Leagues join in fight against cancer

Major sports leagues don’t field female players, but they have joined forces in the awareness of, and high-dollar fundraising for, the fight against breast cancer.

The National Football League’s A Crucial Catch campaign, promotes awareness by allowing the players to wear pink accessories throughout the month of October, which is national Breast Cancer Awareness Month. After the apparel has been used in a game, the NFL will be auctioning the items off and donating the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen foundation.

Major League Baseball’s Going to Bat Against Cancer promotion chose a bit of a different route. They auctioned off pink Louisville Sluggers, the official bat of the MLB, which are used in games played on Mother’s Day in May. Dallas Braden, the Oakland A’s left-handed pitcher, perhaps paid the year’s biggest tribute to families affected by the disease. After pitching only the 19th perfect game in MLB history – retiring 27 straight Tampa Bay Rays batters – Braden, who lost his mother to cancer when he was a senior in high school, shared a long and tearful hug with his grandmother.

The National Hockey League is also doing its best to emulate the success of the MLB and NFL programs while targeting other forms of the disease. The NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancercampaign has partnered with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Prostate Cancer Canada and ZERO – The Project to End Prostate Cancer and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. The NHL and the NHLPA will distribute more than $475,000 in grants to these four organizations as well as local cancer charities in all 30 NHL markets.

Even EA Sports, makers of sports video games, is joining in the fight, selling specially marked games through select Best Buy locations through the month of October. FIFA Soccer 11, NCAA Football 11, NHL 11, Madden NFL 11 and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 11, will feature the Komen Running Ribbon logo to acknowledge a $100,000 donation to the cause from EA SPORTS.

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