Jimmy Fund

The Jimmy Fund is a charitable foundation set up in 1948 to raise funds for cancer care and research in the Boston, MA area. The fund has been connected to baseball from its beginning as it was set up to help Einar "Jimmy" Gustafsson, a 12-year-old cancer patient and ardent fan of the Boston Braves, who was among the first patients to undergo chemotherapy to treat cancer. The original purpose of the fund was to raise enough money to buy him a television so he could watch the Braves from his hospital room. Braves players visited him in hospital and the campaign raised much more money than its original purpose required - over $200,000 - and thus a permanent fund was set up. Gustafsson did recover from his cancer, something which was a rarity at the time, and lived on to the age of 66, devoting his time in his later years to raising money for the fund.

The fund is associated with the Dana-Farber Research Institute, the top cancer hospital in New England, which focuses on the treatment on pediatric cancer. The Boston Red Sox formed a partnership with the fund in 1953, when the Braves left town to become the Milwaukee Braves, and it has continued to this day. The fund is now the official charity of the Red Sox and the team regularly puts on events in support of fundraising. In particular, Hall of Famer Ted Williams devoted a huge amount of time in support of the fund and his involvement greatly raised the Fund's profile. Former Red Sox player Mike Andrews was the Fund's chairman for over three decades, from 1979 to 2010, stemming from a meeting with a cancer patient when he was a rookie in 1967. In 2016, Red Sox President Larry Lucchino became the Fund's chairman.

Further Reading

• Saul Wisnia: "Jimmy Fund: In '67, Red Sox honored another dreamer: 'Jimmy'", in Bill Nowlin and Dan Desrochers, eds.: The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox: 'Pandemonium on the Field', SABR, Rounder Books, Burlington, MA, 2007, p. 322. ISBN 978-1-5794-0141-2