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SIKESTON -- The Sikeston Bulldogs and the Charleston Bluejays are hoping their long standing rivalry can draw a big crowd for a good cause.
On April 17th, the Sikeston-Charleston baseball game will double as a cancer awareness game to bring forth much-needed attention to breast cancer dubbing their Tuesday meeting 'Rivals for a Cure!'
"We've been doing things for a couple years now and trying to do our part to let the kids know that there's a bigger world out there than baseball," Charleston head coach Michael Minner said. "My hat is off to Trisha Keefer. She's taken this and ran with it and all the money is going to the mammography department over there. She's just done a tremendous job and both schools have sold shirts and she's gotten a lot of stuff donated.
"It's one of situations where that day, of course you want to play good baseball, but you want to see a good crowd and you want to see people come out in support for a good cause."
All proceeds from the game, as well as t-shirts that were sold prior, will be donated to the Missouri Delta Medical Center's Mammography Department.
"This is going on for a really good cause," Sikeston head coach Alan Scheeter said. "It's something a little different with a later start time, so maybe a bigger crowd can fill the stadium and we can get as many people there as we can.
"Anytime you can raise money for something like this, it's a good thing."
Although t-shirts have already been sold at both Sikeston and Charleston High School's, additional t-shirts will be on hand.
"I always say that if you don't know anybody that has cancer, you're a very lucky person," Minner said. "You just never know when maybe the 2,000 dollars that's raised there is the 2,000 dollars that saves your dad or your mom or your aunt or your uncle.
"That's a special deal and we just pray that the money being raised will help somebody in the long run and hopefully it will prevent somebody from getting that horrible disease."
Tuesday's first pitch has been pushed back to 6 p.m.