The Los Gatos High baseball team is scheduled to play 27 games during the 2022 regular season, but none will be more important than its home contests in the last week of April.
And not for the usual obvious reason that Santa Clara Valley League De Anza Division championship implications will be on the line or because Palo Alto is ranked No. 2 in the Central Coast Section this season. No, what’s happening on April 29 and two days prior on the 27th with the Los Gatos-Palo Alto junior varsity contest—game times for both are 4pm—goes way beyond the game in scope and implications.
For the first time, Los Gatos is hosting a Vs. Cancer Game fundraiser, a signature campaign of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. Vs. Cancer proceeds help fund local hospital programs for children battling brain cancer tumors and other cancers, provide financial assistance and critical resources for patient families nationwide, and groundbreaking research to cure pediatric brain tumors.
“Baseball brings us all together, but there are some things bigger in life and what families are going through,” Wildcats coach Justin Oliver said. “This is a cause we’re excited about. I know the Los Gatos-Palo Alto rivalries in years past might have had different issues, but this is something that can bring us all together and shine a light on a great cause.”
Oliver commended Palo Alto coach Pete Fukuhara for “going all in” for the Vs. Cancer game, which will feature players and coaches from both teams along with the umpires wearing yellow ribbons which is the childhood cancer logo. There will be banners at both games and ways to donate and a web page has been created at team.curethekids.org/team/414942.
Additionally, 50% of the proceeds from the junior varsity and varsity games will go to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and the other 50% going to the Vs. Cancer organization.
“Lucile Packard makes such a huge impact in so many lives and a donation going there really fits the course of Vs. Cancer,” Oliver said.
Started by a pediatric brain cancer survivor and former collegiate athlete, Vs. Cancer empowers any sports team, any athlete, and any community to help kids with cancer.
Los Gatos is one of hundreds of high school and college sports teams nationwide that are participating in Vs. Cancer’s National Event April 22-May 1. Vs. Cancer had reached out to Oliver in 2020, but Covid-19 canceled the season and even though there was a 2021 season, the schedule was too condensed to try to organize a Vs. Cancer Game.
So, this is a game more than two years in the making and Oliver made sure to do his research on the organization, tapping into his college coaches’ pipeline before deciding to get involved.
“It was really important to me that it was a legit organization,” he said. “A few college coaches who I have strong relationships with assured me that it was a great organization to work with and that I could start something at Los Gatos.”
Oliver, 38, has four kids, two of whom were born with severe health issues. His 13-year-old daughter was born with Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), an irregularly fast or erratic heartbeat, and his 8-year-old son had a hemorrhage at birth. In both cases, Oliver and his wife were unable to take their babies home as they had to spend several weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
“I understand what it’s like to have a kid in the NICU and not with you at home and the heartbreak it brings on families,” Oliver said. “Anything we can do to help out kids and support pediatric cancer is a good cause and something we can shine more light on. I think everyone knows someone who has been affected by cancer and I really believe as a father of four something like this is a way to make a difference in someone else’s life.”
Oliver was deeply moved years ago when he met a 9-year-old boy with cancer at Kaiser in Santa Clara where his daughter was getting treated.
Having noticed the kid was playing a baseball game on the Nintendo Wii, Oliver vividly remembers something that sticks with him to this day.
“He said this was the only way he could play baseball,” Oliver said. “He ended up passing away a month later. It’s those types of stories that really make this cause important, and if we shine a light whether through research or fundraising, that’s a good thing.”
For information on Vs. Cancer, visit vs-cancer.org.
Sports editor Emanuel Lee can be reached at [email protected]
