baseballrules

Congratulations and thanks to all the umpires who participated in this weekend’s prostate cancer awareness campaign as we celebrated fathers. MLB umpires and those in many minor league games across the country raised awareness about this disease and urged men to get tested and catch it during its early stages.

Umpires wore blue wrist bands. MLB players also had blue ribbons on their uniform jerseys. I was at an Independent League game on Father’s Day to see the Long Island Ducks–a wonderful day courtesy of my son. The three umpires officiating that game wore the wrist bands. However, I can’t recall the Ducks bringing attention to the campaign to fight prostate cancer on the stadium scoreboard or over the PA system. I could have just missed it, and apologize to them if I did. Maybe they should have done more to create attention for the cause.

One of the major drivers behind this campaign is Ed Randall and his Bat for the Cure campaign. Randall has handled minor league play-by-play, PA duties and now hosts a fabulous Sunday morning baseball show on WFAN radio in New York City. He said the disease is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men, with 240,000 new cases expected this year. He is a cancer survivor, having been diagnosed with the prostate cancer during 2002.

The umpires’ wristband program began last year with support from minor league baseball and the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation.

I believe Ed got his sports broadcast career off the ground at WFUV-FM in New York while a student at Fordham University. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I believe I am correct. At least, I hope I am correct. I hope Ed sees this posts and gets in touch with this blog to let us know, because I also started my career at WFUV-FM while a student at Fordham.

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