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First Person: Larry Lucchino
Two cancer survivors — Larry Lucchino and young Danny Pardi — share a moment during an all-day tribute to the Red-Sox/Dana-Farber partnership, held in August 2002at Fenway.
When Edward Bennett Williams died of cancer in 1988, a group of three of us acquired the Orioles from his estate, and I continued as president and CEO of the team (EBW had appointed me to the post earlier in '88). Over the next six years, we designed and constructed the team's new ballpark, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, a project he and I had only envisioned before I got sick. If I ever needed proof that there are challenges you can immerse yourself in, and great things you can accomplish after cancer treatment, Camden Yards was it. Intensive cancer treatment stays with you for years and years in everything you do, and the experience certainly heightened my awareness of how lucky I was to have a challenging job I loved.
I became president of the San Diego Padres [baseball club] at the end of 1994 and lived in California for the next seven-plus years. I found out I had prostate cancer in 1999. I kept the diagnosis (made at Dana-Farber) to myself for several months during the baseball season. I never could have, or would have, done that were it not for my first experience. I saw what an impact cancer has on the people around you, and I didn't want to burden them until I knew precisely what was wrong with me and the exact plan of attack to deal with it. After I had all that pieced together, I told my family and friends and had surgery at Johns Hopkins.
A billboard advertising the Red Sox's official charity — the Jimmy Fund — had been a fixture in right-field for generations. It was replaced with a large decal on the green monster when Fenway Park was expanded and a new section of seats was added to this spot in 2004.
When I came to Boston at the beginning of 2002 as part of the new Red Sox ownership group, I felt I had a special connection to the city; after all, my life had been saved here. And, of course, as a baseball executive I knew that Boston is the "Mecca" of baseball. One of the first things [principal owner] John Henry and I did on the morning after our group got Major League Baseball approval to buy the Red Sox was to visit the Jimmy Fund Clinic. I wanted to reestablish immediately my personal connection and to introduce John to the people and personalities there. If you're not touched by what goes on at the clinic, you're not truly alive.
I've always believed that a baseball team has to be more than a baseball team; it receives such enormous attention and fidelity that it needs to respond, to reciprocate. Players should understand that fame and popularity must be repaid in various ways to other people. Teams should bring a community together, channeling the energy of the players to grapple with the problems that humanity faces. The Red Sox have been great to the Jimmy Fund, but the Jimmy Fund has also been great for the Red Sox — and for all sports — by setting an example for what can be accomplished when people join together to advance a good cause. I was so inspired by this partnership that I helped start the Cindy Mathers Fund in San Diego in memory of a young Padres fan who died of cancer. It's still going strong and is a major point of pride for the Padres.
Lucchino (left) invited DFCI researchers, including William Hahn, MD, PhD, to throw out the first pitch at a June 2002 Red Sox game.
As the new ownership group, all we can do now is be "caretakers" of an extraordinary tradition and make our contributions to the development and extension of those traditions. People here are absolutely inspired to do it, and the Jimmy Fund is one of the pillars of the new Red Sox Foundation. We now have our turn at bat, and we want to leave a mark, both on the franchise and on the Jimmy Fund.
The celebration for Ted Williams at Fenway Park [in July 2002] was a perfect example. The fight against cancer was Ted's fight, and that fact became more appreciated in the days after his death. You look at this great man, and at the three basic aspects of his life commemorated upon his death: the Red Sox and baseball, the Marines and his patriotism, and the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber. He continues to serve as a vivid reminder of the importance of the Jimmy Fund to all of us.
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