Bradley University’s baseball team wrapped up their 2015 home schedule yesterday with a sound 13-4 thumping at the hands I-74 rival Illinois State, but the team has much more going for it off the field.
Bradley baseball is putting together quite the 2015 season.
Ignoring, for a second, the team’s on field performance, which included their first triple play since the 1940s and a spot on ESPN’s Top Ten plays, the team is making marks off the diamond as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2fQgbleOWM
Sunday’s game was Senior Day for Bradley, as seniors Isaac Smith, David Koll, Drew Carlile, Sean Safko, Stephen Toma and Graig Weber all played in their final home game as a Brave. The players were joined on the field pregame by their parents for the game’s ceremonial first pitch, with each mother wearing their respective Bradley player’s pink jersey.
The pink jerseys are an annual event for Bradley’s athletic teams. In February, Bradley’s women’s basketball team hosted their 12th annual pink game while the softball team hosted their annual event last month. Bradley’s men’s basketball team joined the party a little later than the university’s other sports, having hosted its first pink game in 2013.
Gina Morss-Fischer, Affiliate Development Director for Susan G. Komen Memorial, said in 2013 it was a great partnership between the two entities.
“’Go Pink, Go Bradley’ is a great way for Bradley University and the Susan G. Komen Memorial Affiliate to spread the breast health message while also raising money for local community health grants and research,” said Morss-Fischer.
The pink games aren’t the only way Bradley baseball raises money for cancer research. The team partnered with the Vs. Cancer foundation this season to raise money to fight childhood cancer. To date, the team has raised over $11,000 for research, half of which will stay in Illinois.
A chart that shows the decline in cancer mortality rates since 1975. Click to enlarge.
Junior starting pitcher Steve Adkins was put in charge of Bradley’s fundraising efforts by head coach Elvis Dominguez. Adkins and the team visited the Children’s Hospital of Illinois in April because, according to Adkins, they wanted to see who their efforts would benefit.
“Since half of the money we raised is going, right here, to the Children’s Hospital of Illinois, we just wanted to get in touch with some of these kids,” Adkins said. “I think a big reason we wanted to do this was to try and get in touch with these kids and show them we got their back.”
The nationwide rallying behind cancer research seems to be working. According to statistics compiled by the National Cancer Institute, mortality rates for both childhood cancer and breast cancer have dropped at least 30 percent since the mid-1970s.