FEBRUARY 2023

Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs for (barely) carrying Super Bowl Sunday. And thanks, too, to the dozen or so diehards who turned out for what we hope will be an annual version of The Catch, scheduled at noon on the day of the big game. Thanks mostly to Rich Hunt and his supporters, we raised over $2,500 in support of Fans for the Cure's regular programs, which include the Support Groups, Community Outreach, and free PSA screenings.  

Our spring and summer schedules are beginning to fill up. Please get in touch with us at [email protected] if there is a community or church health event where you live where you believe we can add value.

A Wiffle Ball tournament on July 13 has just been added (see below). Thanks to our pals at Ball Chain for running with this one. We cannot wait for a day of "elite" Wiffle Ball on the water in Pelham, with additional activities and celebrity participants to be announced. Hoping to set up a Home Run Derby on one of the fields for the non-elite Wiffle Ballers among us.

June and September focus on Men's Health and Prostate Cancer, respectively. Let us know if you would like Fans for the Cure to conduct a Corporate Seminar on prostate cancer for your company. These one-hour programs are generally coordinated with the HR Departments and include a physician presentation from our side. For more about seminars, email us at [email protected].  

For those of you attending spring games in Florida and Arizona, don't forget the sunscreen. One month (and one day) until Opening Day!

Kind regards,

Ed Randall
Founder + Chief Advocacy Officer
Fans for the Cure

The Kansas City Chiefs were not the only winners on Super Bowl Sunday. On that same day, our founder, Ed Randall, hosted a catch with a team of friends and supporters of Fans for the Cure.

Gathering at a public park in suburban New York City on what turned out to be a mild winter day, Ed and Co. had a great time throwing around a baseball, sharing those "remember when" stories, and enjoying the company of others in the prostate cancer community. 

We extend our thanks to City of New Rochelle for its hospitality and to Rawlings for its ongoing sponsorship of our Catch for the Cure campaign.

Fans for the Cure’s Online Men’s Support Group is pleased to welcome Dr. Michael Bernstein, a radiation oncologist based at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center who practices in Nassau County (Long Island, NY) and Westchester County (NY). Dr. Bernstein’s hour of presentation and Q&A will mainly focus on what people need to know about monitoring for, diagnosing, and treating the recurrence of detectable prostate cancer. 

To register for the Online Men’s Support Group and to RSVP for the March 7 meeting, please click on the blue register button below.

We are pleased to share that Stacy Loeb, MD will visit the Online Women's Group on Tuesday, March 19 to discuss the important topic of our nutritional choices and prostate cancer. A member of our organization's Medical Advisory Board, Dr. Loeb has made the connection between a plant-based diet and improved prostate cancer outcomes a key focus of her research and recent panel presentations. A recent guest of the Stay in the Game podcast, Howard Wolinsky, wrote about Dr. Loeb's findings on Mescape.com.

Congratulations to our charity's wonderful friend Andre Dawson on the success of this year's Andre Dawson Classic, a tournament designed by MLB to spotlight Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and their baseball programs. 

This year's tournament was won by Prairie View A&M (Texas), which swept its three games.  

This year marked the return of the tournament to the historic Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Fla. Andre (Florida A&M University) and Lou Brock (Southern University) are Hall of Famers produced by the proud baseball tradition of the HBCU programs. This year's tournament also featured over twenty players who are Nike RBI and MLB Youth Academy alumni.  

Again, job well done to Andre and to MLB for a running such a terrific event, and we hope to see you back in Vero Beach in 2025.  

An online survey from our friends at Pinpoint Patient Recruiting:

Men diagnosed with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) and their care partners may be eligible to participate in a 45-minute online survey about their experience. The purpose of the research is to better understand experiences with mCRPC and to gain your feedback on materials that will be used to educate others.

If you or your loved one has received Erleada, Nubeqa, Xtandi or Zytiga as treatment for mCRPC, you may be eligible to participate. Those who qualify and participate in the study will receive $150 as a thank you. All information and responses will remain confidential.

To see if you qualify for the study or to get more information, please visit pinpointpatientrecruiting.com/mcrpc-survey or contact Kathryn Goodfellow at [email protected].

Fans for the Cure is honored to be participating in the Nashville Predators’ second Hockey Fights Cancer night as part of the team’s game vs. the St. Louis Blues at Bridgestone Arena on April 4. The healthcare partner in the evening’s PSA screening is the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.  

We expect to collaborate on at least five Hockey Fights Cancer games around the country during the 2024-25 season, many of which will take place during November 2024.       

For our friends in the Nashville area who wish to take part or stop by and say hello, write to us at [email protected].

Before he created TheActiveSurveillor.com, Howard Wolinsky was a medical writer for the Chicago Sun-Times for nearly thirty years and a regular contributor to MedPage Today and Medscape. When he was diagnosed with Gleason 6 (now also called GG1) prostate he said no thanks as he was being rushed to take on a radical treatment option. Thirteen years down the road from his cancer diagnosis he is one of the country’s most passionate advocates for active surveillance as a first (and possibly forever) step to indolent/favorable diagnoses of prostate cancer.

On Saturday, July 13 (rain date is Sunday, July 14), in collaboration with our friends at Ball Chain Manufacturing, we will be holding a Wiffle Ball tournament/fundraiser at the New York Athletic Club Travers Island in Pelham, NY, “located on 33 idyllic acres beside the Long Island Sound.”

The brackets will feature teams and nationally-rated players featured on YouTube. For those of us who grew up on beach chairs as strike zones, there will be fields (and shade) made available for us, too.

Festivities will include food and drink and are scheduled to take place all afternoon into the early evening. For more information, including sponsorship opportunities, get in touch with us at [email protected].

We expect to collaborate on at least ten prostate cancer screenings at MLB and Minor League ballparks during the 2024 season. In addition, Fans for Cure PA announcements and scoreboard videos are presented by over 75 teams.   

Confirmed dates include:

• June 13 (Thursday) – Mets vs. Florida Marlins at Citi Field
• June 23 (Sunday) – Peoria Chiefs vs. Cedar Rapids Kernels at Veterans Memorial Stadium, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
• September 12 (Thursday) – Boston Red Sox vs. Yankees at Yankee Stadium

Building on the success of Ed Randall’s Super Bowl Sunday Catch in New Rochelle (Westchester), NY, we invite people to sign up for a catch with a loved one, a former teammate, a beloved coach, or a friend who might be currently challenged by prostate cancer. Simply go to my.fansforthecure.org/thecatch and set up a page for your catch or your catches. 

We are finding that people are having success with their pages after sharing the URL on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites.  

To participate in our video for The Catch, download and follow the directions for filming yourself catching and throwing a ball.

Fans for the Cure offers corporate educational seminars on prostate cancer featuring a staff member and a urologist or radiation oncologist (specializing in prostate cancer) who will come to your offices. We usually work with HR Departments and conduct these one-hour sessions in June (National Men’s Health Month) or September (National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month).

For more information, email Joe Cosgriff at [email protected].

Both of our online support groups are free and open to all men and women respectively, with registration required.

Men's Support Group

• Thursday, March 7 at 7 PM ET – Dr. Michael Bernstein of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center will be our guest. – Register for the Men's Support Group meeting. 
• Thursday, March 21 at 7 PM ET

Women's Support Group

• Tuesday, March 5 at 8 PM ET – Register for the Women's Support Group meeting
• Tuesday, March 19 at 8 PM ET – Dr. Stacy Loeb of NYU Langone Health will be our guest.

Fans for the Cure allows attendees to register for only the immediately upcoming online support group meeting. Thanks for understanding our desire to keep our meetings safe, secure, and private.

We thank Bayer for generously underwriting the technical and production costs associated with Fans for the Cure’s Online Men’s and Women’s/Caregivers’ Support Groups.

It’s only February, but this year we have already matched over a dozen men with trusted physicians for diagnoses, treatment consultations, second opinions, and other services.

For referrals in all 50 states, get in touch with us at (888) 301-4414 or via the orange button below.  

In this section, we share links to blog posts, news articles, medical journals, books, and other items that we think will be of interest to you.

1. For 22 Years, Drew Bouton Has Lived With Metastatic Prostate Cancer – published by CancerHealth.com
2. PODCAST: Lifestyle Medicine in Prostate Cancer – with Dr. Stacy Loeb
3. VIDEO: Sleep is your superpower – A TED talk from Matt Walker, published in 2019.
4. Gut microbiota in patients with prostate cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis – Increasing evidence indicates that gut microbiota are closely related to prostate cancer.
5. What doctors wish patients knew about prostate cancer – published by the American Medical Association (AMA)

We are asking our friends to have a catch in support of our work in the prostate cancer community. Grab your mitt, connect with your family or friends, and throw the ball around for a good cause.

Call us: 888-301-4414