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The Jimmy Fund

Since 1953, one thing has remained constant for the Boston Red Sox baseball team — its role as champion for the Jimmy Fund.

Champions for Charity

The roots of this allegiance extend back to the founding of the Jimmy Fund in 1948, when members of another Boston baseball franchise, the Boston Braves, participated in the national radio broadcast that launched the charity.

On April 10, 1953, Yawkey announced that his team would adopt the Jimmy Fund as its official charity and continue the tradition started by the Braves. The two ball clubs celebrated the occasion by playing a benefit exhibition game for the Jimmy Fund the next day.

Home Runs

The Yawkeys’ commitment to the Jimmy Fund over the years made the charity a household name and, more importantly, helped Dana-Farber make unprecedented strides in cancer research and care.

When the Jimmy Fund/Red Sox partnership started in the 1950s, few cancer treatment options were available and most patients with the disease did not survive. Today, with the use of chemotherapy, radiation, vaccines, targeted drugs, and other therapies, half of all patients do. Indeed, these therapies have led to cure rates nearing 90 percent for some forms of childhood cancer.

Today the Red Sox commitment to the Jimmy Fund remains in full swing. In the words of Lucchino, team president and CEO, as well as a former patient at Dana-Farber: “The Red Sox are part of the fabric of this city and the Jimmy Fund is an inseparable part of the Red Sox.”