1,500 Women Play Softball to Fund Breast Cancer Research

When Katie McAlinden stepped onto the softball field seven months after her breast cancer surgery in 2013, she heard something that changed everything: survivor after survivor announcing 5, 10, 20, even 34 years in remission.

Now she runs the tournament that gave her that hope. The 32nd annual Ginger Rugai Y-Me Softball Tournament brought 74 teams and more than 1,500 women to Chicago's South Side fields this Saturday, all playing for a cause that's touched nearly every participant's life.

The tournament raised $115,000 last year alone. Over three decades, the community event has donated more than $1 million to breast cancer research at the University of Chicago Medical Center's Ben May Department for Cancer Research.

That funding is doing more than filling labs. Dr. Kay Macleod says the tournament's support has enabled critical preliminary research into autophagy inhibitors, a treatment that blocks cancer cells from spreading. The research has helped her team secure larger federal grants that continue the work.

"The support from Y-Me allows us to do the experiments to get the data that proves the feasibility to get one of those bigger grants," Macleod explained.

McAlinden, a breast cancer survivor herself, took over as executive director this year after founder and former alderperson Ginger Rugai stepped down. She credits the Mount Greenwood community's unwavering support for the tournament's success over the decades.

The Ripple Effect

The money raised on softball fields is translating into real medical progress. The research funded by this tournament is helping develop treatments that block tumor cell migration and breast cancer metastasis, giving patients better odds at longer, healthier lives.

Every participant can see that progress in real time. At 2 p.m. Saturday, 89 breast cancer survivors took the field for the traditional Survivor Game at St. Christina Fields. Each woman was called up one by one in order of survivorship.

"You start to just feel hope because you start hearing all these, five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years," McAlinden said. "It's truly inspiring, and it really gives everybody a lot of hope."

Olympic gold medalist Abbey Murphy threw out the ceremonial first pitch, celebrating women who've turned their own battles into funding for breakthrough treatments.

Three decades in, this softball tournament proves that community action creates laboratory breakthroughs that save lives.