Prostate Cancer group honors Sigler, MSBL
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| MSBL President and Founder Steve Sigler (back row holding grandson Wesley) was honored by the Prostate Cancer Foundation at a Mets game recently. Pictured also are N.Y. Mets GM Sandy Alderson (back row, left) Mets Third baseman David Wright, Mets Manager Terry Collins (far right) and several other big donors to the PCF. |
One in six men still battle prostate cancer
By Jeff McGaw, MSBLNational.com
Whether it's Major League Baseball or amateur adult baseball, there is an endless supply of numbers, statistics and percentages, but the one statistic that really sticks out for all men is "one in six.”
That's the number of men in America who will be affected by prostate cancer, according to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and it's the reason Steve Sigler, founder and president of the MSBL, chose to make the Prostate Cancer Foundation the MSBL's national charity years ago.
"The statistics for this disease among adult men is staggering,” said MSBL Founder and President Steve Sigler who was honored, in a pregame ceremony at a New York Mets game, by the Prostate Cancer Foundation for giving adult players an opportunity to continue playing baseball, and for pledging MSBL support to the cause.
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"There are many worthwhile charities out there in the world and our leagues across the country do their part, but no cause hits closer to home than the fight to cure prostate cancer,” Sigler said.
So far this year MSBL leagues across the nation have donated over $25,000 to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. |
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| Dave Perron, Vice President of |
Three generations: Steve Sigler (right) son Brian (left) and grandson Wes Sigler prior to the Mets game in which Steve and the MSBL were honored.. |
Baseball and Sports Enterprises at the Prostate Cancer Foundation estimates that over the past 15 years the MSBL has donated nearly $500,000 to the foundation. "It's been a great partnership,” Perron said. Major League Baseball partnered with the Prostate Cancer Foundation 17 years ago and created the Home Run Challenge. Sponsors pledge money for every home run hit during a two week period leading up to Father's Day. In all, 150 homers flew
out of the park in 75 selected MLB games for a total of $3 million, according to Dave Perron, vice president of sports enterprises for the Prostate Cancer Foundation. In 17 years the program has raised over $40 million.Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in America. Though advances have been made, and men with prostate cancer are living longer, too many men still die from the disease. Some 242,000 men will be diagnosed with the disease in 2012, and an estimated 28,000 will die from it. About two million Americans and 16 million men globally, are currently living with the disease.
The numbers get even scarier. According to the PCF, one in 10,000 men under 40 will be diagnosed with the disease, but the rate rockets up to one in 39 for men aged 40-59, and one in 14 for men 60-69. African American men are 60 percent more likely to get the disease and 2.5 times more likely to die from it.
Thanks to research that lead to better methods for early detection, the survival rate has dramatically improved.
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The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) is the world's largest philanthropic source of support for prostate cancer research to discover better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer. Founded in 1993, the organization, with help from MSBL and MLB baseball among many others, has raised nearly $450 million and provided funding for more than 1,500 research projects at nearly 200 institutions worldwide.
Thanks to research funds, researchers at Johns Hopkins are close to creating a saliva test to help predict a person's likelihood of developing the disease, and have discovered ways that could help doctors know what treatments are working and when they may be stopped to name just two of the breakthroughs. |
| Researchers at the Mayo Clinic |
are working on new drugs may be developed to |
trigger the body's immune system to identify and attack the cancer. University of Michigan researchers are looking into ways to target therapies and precisely match treatments for individuals, and scientists at UCLA and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center researchers have discovered a marker in the blood known as Insulin Growth Factor Binding Protein 2 which may lead to earlier diagnosis of disease activity in the bone as opposed to current methods of detection.
Sigler accepted the plaque on the field at Citi Field in Flushing, N.Y., prior to the start of a major league baseball game between the N.Y. Mets and the Cincinnati Reds on Father's Day. Mets manager Terry Collins and star third baseman David Wright also participated in the celebration.
"It was a great honor and the MSBL is proud to be a part of the fight to end prostate cancer,” Sigler said.