Rugai's Y-Me Softball Tournament Swings into Mt. Greenwood Park Soon

On August 24, 2013, the Ginger Rugai Y-Me Softball Tournament will once again take over the fields of Mt. Greenwood Park to rally support for breast cancer fighters and research. 

The all-female tournament will feature over 50 teams. “We have girls that play better than guys,” Kathy O’Shea, the tournament chairperson, said. “They all love it.”

There is also a special gift basket raffle with each basket donated by a team. “One [basket] is all dog stuff, another is chocolate-martini themed, an Irish basket, a movie basket,” she said. “They’re going crazy with it.”

Tournament proceeds are donated to Dr. Richard Jones of the University of Chicago, who does research on classifying similar breast tumors. O’Shea said that after the Y-Me organization dissolved, “we wanted to give [the money] to research instead of counseling...or CEOs.”

The softball tournament committee met with charities and foundations associated with breast cancer and chose to grant it to Dr. Jones directly. “He’s right here in our neighborhood, he’s made major achievements, he came out to the game [in the past]—who does that?” O’Shea said.

"I'm very indebted to their support," Jones said. "We have a series of breast cancer projects that we've been working on that have been difficult to get federal funding for because of [budget] cuts." He said that the grassroots donations from charities and foundations, including the softball tournament, make a significant difference.

This will be the third year of the partnership between the tournament and Dr. Jones.

O’Shea created the tournament in 1994 after working for Rugai, the former 19th ward alderman and a breast cancer survivor. “She was good to me, and I wanted to do something for her,” she said. “She had breast cancer. I played softball. I thought, why not do a little softball tournament and give the money to breast cancer foundations?” 

That little tournament quickly snowballed, raising thousands of dollars and bringing together hundreds of women of all ages and athleticism. Check out the numbers below to see its impact this year.

By the numbers

• $45,000 expected to be raised

• 1,000 t-shirts and 1,000 goodie bags for players

• over 100 softballs used

• 52 teams this year

• 19 years of tournaments

• 12 softball fields across Mt. Greenwood Park and the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences are used in the tournament

• 9 hours of softball games, at least

• 3 divisions of teams, categorized by softball experience

• 3 cases of beverages per team: one case each of water, pop and beer

• 1 goal: to fund breast cancer research while providing an entertaining girls’ day for survivors, friends and family

O’Shea said the first games kick off at 8 a.m. and the championship game will be played around 5 or 6 p.m. She said Rugai will host a game played by breast cancer survivors at 1 p.m.