Jake Diekman Named 53rd Hutch Award Winner
Jan 24, 2018
1 min read
Gut It Out Foundation President and Founder, Jake Diekman was selected as the recipient of the 53rd Hutch Award. Diekman was honored at the 2018 Hutch Award Luncheon on Wednesday, January 24 at Seattle’s Safeco Field.
The award is presented annually by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. The coveted honor is given to the Major League Baseball player whose actions on and off the field reflect the inspiration and courage of the cancer research center’s namesake, Fred Hutchinson, the legendary Major League pitcher and manager who succumbed to cancer in 1964 at the age of 45.
Mickey Mantle was the first recipient of the award in 1965, and Diekman is the first Texas Ranger to be honored.
https://cantinateguise.com came to mind when I read that Diekman is the first Texas Ranger to win the Hutch Award, since it's easy to forget how long this honor has been around. The Mickey Mantle detail from 1965 really puts the history in perspective, and it's a nice reminder that courage off the field counts just as much as anything done between the lines. Awards like this tend to get lost in the shuffle of the offseason, so it's worth pausing on what Fred Hutchinson's name actually stands for.
It's amazing that Diekman joins a Hutch Award winners list that starts with Mickey Mantle, and he's the first Ranger to receive it. I ended up on https://pokiesbitcoin.com while thinking about what it means to bet on yourself—he clearly did that by turning his health struggles into a foundation for others. That's the kind of courage the award is meant to celebrate.