The Great Fight

If you're a Boston sports fan today, the event is unavoidable.

On WEEI, you'll hear requests for donations and statistics thrown around more often than on an average sports day. On NESN, a simulcast.

Some WEEI personae appear more frequently in the public eye than others, but almost nobody will be drawn in by the faces of the normally faceless radio personalities. It's not the sports radio guys who need to be personified, put out there for all to see. It's the victims of cancer, young and old, who put a face to the world's deadliest disease.

Back in 2002, NESN and WEEI combined for their 1st annual Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, an attempt to raise money for Dana Farber's Jimmy Fund to benefit cancer research. In six years, the event has raised more than $8.3 million for the Jimmy Fund, which has collected over $400 million since it's creation in 1948.

Nearly 1.5 million new cases of cancer were found in the U.S. this year according to the American Cancer Institute, in addition to about 565,000 deaths. As grim as the numbers look sometimes, everyone says there is progression in combating cancer. With more than 90 cents per dollar going directly towards research, according to the Jimmy Fund web site, doctors speak more optimistically about cancer eradication. You'll hear analogies of "hitting it out of the park" and, hopefully, even more success stories than last year.

2007 saw an event-record $3.68 million raised, a number they hope to top this year with a $4 million goal over 36 hours of programming.

One need not look far for the impact cancer can have on a person. Maybe it's a family member, a friend, or even yourself. Boston Red Sox Mike Lowell and Jon Lester are cancer survivors, as is Phil Kessel of the Bruins.

There's no shortage of other examples in the sports world. Lance Armstrong shocked the world, becoming the most prolific cycler of all-time after having testicular cancer spread to his lungs, abdomen, and brain. Saku Koivu was diagnosed with cancer and recovered in time to lead his Canadiens to a first round upset over the Bruins in 2002. Mario Lemieux battled lymphoma. Eric Davis, colon cancer.

You could cast an entire movie of cancer survivors with Ewen McGregor, Edie Falco, Gene Wilder, Fran Drescher, Barry Watson, Tom Green, and Olivia Newton-John, have another cancer survivor, Roger Ebert, give it a rating, and then schedule a concert featuring Kylie Minogue and Eddie Van Halen to celebrate its release. All are just a small sliver of the many, many cancer survivors.

Not everyone is so lucky.

I have no personal connection to cancer, thankfully. I can't talk about what I've seen chemotherapy do to people. I can't talk about coping with the anguish.

My grandfather, a veteran worn by years of alcohol abuse, died of cancer a few years back. Sadly, I never got to know him like a grandson should, beyond knowing him as "the guy who sleeps on our couch sometimes". There was no sentimentality there. My friend's mother and another's grandmother are both fighting with cancer right now.

Gerry Callahan wrote poignantly about his battle with throat cancer. Among the many things he said, "I thanked God for one thing: It was me lying there, and not one of my kids." But many sons and daughters are affected.

Earlier this morning, my boss and co-worker accompanied her son to the VA Hospital in West Roxbury. After fighting in Iraq, he came home to find his acute hearing loss was the result of a brain tumor. He survived battle overseas, but her boy faces his own war today.

I don't know what that must feel like. I hope I never get to find out.

For a living I hope to write about sports, as I've delved in to here and, by some miracle - or by Matt Porter, in the Boston Globe. Sports can often be a fickle industry where fans clamor over a number on a stat sheet or media grumbles over a player's choice of words and demeanor when looking for quotes.

But today, NESN and WEEI take pause. Not over a trade, game, quote, or other irrelevancy. Nor do they pause to persuade for a campaign or doctrine.

Today, they pause for the fight for life. They don't do it for the sake of ratings or listeners. They don't even do it to grandstand. They do it because they have a tremendous influence over sports-hungry Boston fans. If they can consolidate their efforts into two days of fund-raising, they can triumph over a harrowing illness.

They can save lives. And that will bring a smile to anyone's face.