Liam Hendriks continues to make a distinction with out throwing a pitch.
In ballpark after ballpark this season, the Chicago White Sox reliever has met with households impacted by most cancers.
Major League Baseball introduced final week that Hendriks, who made an inspirational return to the mound after battling stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, had been nominated for the Roberto Clemente Award.
“Being able to get nominated is a huge honor. It’s not why you do things. But it’s always nice to be recognized,” Hendriks mentioned final week in Detroit. “Life hits you and you can run with it, which is what we’ve done and tried to make good of it.”
The Clemente Award is introduced to a major-league participant who finest represents the sport “through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions, both on and off the field,” based on the web site related to the respect. The winner will probably be introduced in the course of the World Series.
Hendriks has been the membership’s nominee for 3 straight years.
“The legacy Roberto Clemente has left behind, it’s enduring,” he mentioned. “It’s something that I think everyone can strive toward. This is one of those awards where it has nothing to do with talent. It has a lot to do with compassion and giving and making sure you use your platform for good.”
Hendriks will probably be acknowledged earlier than the sport Friday — which is World Lymphoma Awareness Day — towards the Minnesota Twins at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Also Friday, Hendriks and his spouse Kristi are teaming up with “DJ” Pauly D of MTV Jersey Shore fame for a fundraising tailgate occasion at 4 p.m. in Lot B of the car parking zone.
All proceeds go towards benefiting Be The Match, a neighborhood comprising donors, volunteers, well being care professionals, and researchers who work collectively to supply lifesaving marrow transplants to these in want.Ticket data could be discovered at <u>whitesox.com/liamtailgate</u><u>.</u>
“Pauly has been fantastic with it all,” Hendriks mentioned. “We reached out and it was a straight up yes, very very quickly. Excited to meet him and work together and excited for an opportunity to raise awareness and hopefully get some people on the registry who can help save somebody’s life.”
Hendriks has remained lively whereas sidelined after present process season-ending Tommy John surgical procedure on Aug. 2. Before the surgical procedure, he pitched in 5 video games — starting with the emotional return on May 29.
“Here’s a guy who is going through unbelievable difficulty and adversity and he still has time to serve others,” supervisor Pedro Grifol mentioned. “That’s an unbelievable testomony to his character and integrity and what he’s about.
“You go through cancer and a Tommy John and you’re still focused on other people. He deserves everything in the world. He’s a great person and he cares for others. It’s great to be around him. That’s why he’s here. He’s on the (injured list) and he won’t pitch this year, but we want him here with us.”
Hendriks has gotten quite a bit out of the conversations from the assorted ballparks.
“The Dodgers were the first one we did (in June) and they went above and beyond. The organizations we’ve gone to since have been following suit,” he mentioned. “You speak to individuals who have gone by way of it and you’ve got an identical story. It’s refreshing. It takes a load off your shoulders.
“A lot of it is adolescent or young adult, so we’ve been really stressing trying to remove the stigma from the word cancer. Talk about it with your friends. Say the word cancer. Say the word chemotherapy. We need to remove that initial shutter.”
The Hendriks teamed with the Sox to assist increase greater than $100,000 for lymphoma analysis by way of the sale of “Close Out Cancer” T-shirts.
“There are people going through this on a daily basis, there’s people in the hospital once a week for the rest of their lives going through this but they are battling and they are fighting it out and taking it to it,” Hendriks mentioned. “That’s all we will do. Hopefully we will increase just a little little bit of consciousness and funding and hopefully in some unspecified time in the future we will get a remedy for many varieties.
“Any kind of awareness and funding we can raise is huge.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com
