Month: April 2015

Huge thank you to the Rockford University baseball team for teaming up with K Cancer Baseball for a “Be The Match Bone Marrow Registry” drive at their Aviator Stadium game this past Friday night!

The weather was awful but that didn’t stop things. The team heard about the mission of the “Be The Match Bone Marrow Registry” and was more than happy to get involved.

The Registry types a persons bone marrow and adds their information to a database. When a person suffering from a blood cancer needs a bone marrow transplant, the registry is checked for a match. 1 out of 540 people on the registry are contacted to provide a bone marrow transplant that is the hope needed to save a life. Who knows, one of the players who signed up on the registry at last nights event might be called and given the chance to be someones hero!

The team came by to say high to K Cancer Baseballs favorite fan, Samantha Roberson!

We had the “Awesomeist” Saturday possible this past Saturday! The K Cancer Baseball awareness travel baseball team had it’s first tournament this Saturday at Roy Gayle baseball fields in Rockford. Everything was absolutely perfect.

The weather was incredible. It was a warm sunny day that showed off how nice the diamonds were at Roy Gayle. Whoever is taking care of the grounds there is doing an awesome job! The fields are in the best shape they have ever been in.

Our first game was at 8:00 am and the team started things off right. The guys jumped out to an early lead and never let up. We started the 3 game round robin tournament with a win.

We had a special treat before the second game started. Samantha Roberson and her family showed up. Samantha is an eleven year old girl who is striking out her bone and muscle cancer. She has gone through a lot in the last year and has come out of it with a smile on her face. She lights things up everywhere she goes.  Samantha called the coin toss for us and she got it right! Each of the guys had Samantha touch their bat for good luck. It must have worked, the team won 22-1!

After the game we had a potluck lunch. Senator Syverson stopped by to present the guys with State Certificates from their trip to Springfield recently. He hung out with the guys for a little while, and was able to meet Samantha and her family. He was kind enough to take a picture with the team before he had to jet off to a community function. Senator Syverson has been a huge help to us in getting the word out about the services available to area families who are battling childhood cancer.

For our third and final game, the energy arrived! Six year old Tyler Levine and his family came out to hang out with his K Cancer Baseball friends. He called the coin toss for us. Like Samantha, he picked right and we got to be the home team. He then threw out the first pitch, not a bad arm for a little fella going through Chemo! He stayed in the dugout throughout the game and entertained us as we wrapped up the last game with a win.

It was an awesome day with some baseball and some awesome friends. What a way to start the baseball season!

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So, as a baseball coach, there are times when you go into a game thinking one thing, and then something else happens. An example would be that you have your number 1 pitcher going for you in the next game and you are playing a team who has their number 4 starter pitching. You think you are going to pitch well and score a bunch of runs. You get into the game and the other pitcher is “on” that day and you are shut out. What you thought you were going to do to the other team happened to you!

Well, we had that experience on Wednesday night! K Cancer Baseball had the great fortune of going out to deliver a Care Package and meet the family of a special young lady named Samantha. Samantha is an 11 year old girl in the Harlem School District. She has been battling Bone and Muscle Cancer for a little while now. We heard about the trials she has gone through and the tough decisions she is going to have to make in the near future about how to attack her disease instead of letting it continue to attack her. We assumed that we would have to bring some smiles with us to give to her!

So we armed ourselves with the awesome gifts that are in the Care Packages that we are able to put together because of the many state line businesses and citizens who donate to K Cancer Baseball. We headed out and were ready to try to give some hope and cheer to a family fighting an HUGE enemy. Boy were we in for a surprise!

We were met at the door with a hug and smiles all around! Samantha is an amazing girl. In spite of the reasons she could give for being down, she picks you up just by being around her! She had a smile on her face that seemed like it is always there. It doesn’t take you long to find out where she gets it. Her Mother is the typical Southern lady, fussing over her visitors to make sure you feel at home and that you eat something!

We left a Care Package to help with treatment travel expenses and to show Samantha and her family that they are not alone and that the state line community cares about them. What we didn’t leave was smiles, they were already there and we took them with us!

Samantha is going to have some big challenges ahead of her. We are looking forward to being the hands and feet of the state line community as we do our small part to help her through them!

We want to send out a special thank you to Alpine Kiwanis for inviting K Cancer Baseball to their meeting on April 9th where we received a $500 check in support of our services for families affected by Childhood Cancer.  Youth Advisory Board Members Brock Ashens and Britton Morris presented to over 100 members. The Alpine Kiwanis members showed their appreciation for the challenges associated with childhood cancer in our area, and the efforts being made to address those challenges, by giving the guys a standing ovation at the end of the presentation!

Thank you for reminding us that we are not alone in our concern for our community members who are dealing with challenges that are too big to face alone.