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Craig Breslow to Receive Dave Stewart Community Service Award

Oakland A’s pitcher Craig Breslow has been named the recipient of the 2010 Dave Stewart Community Service Award, which is given annually to an A’s player in recognition of charitable contributions throughout Northern California and across the nation.

Dave Stewart will present Breslow with the award prior to Wednesday’s 12:35 pm game against the Chicago White Sox in a special on-field ceremony at 12:52 pm. Over the past year, Breslow has raised close to $150,000 for childhood cancer research and education through fundraising events associated with his “Strike 3 Foundation.” These fundraising events include the foundation’s annual First Pitch Gala held each year in Connecticut, a number of smaller networking events during the off-season, a wine tasting art event in San Francisco in July, a blackjack fundraiser in the Bay Area in August and a luncheon at Yankee Stadium this past month. In addition, 10% of the proceeds from the A’s 2010 Community Fund Golf Classic were donated to the Strike 3 Foundation. Read the full story here »

September 21, 2010 · MLB.com

Breslow’s pitch would’ve been a hit with Clemente

At the age of 11, when athletic young men with live arms dream of playing major-league baseball, Craig Breslow started thinking about making a profound impact on the world.

He was incredibly scared when his sister, Lesley, two years his elder, had contracted cancer, and Breslow remembers thinking his destiny was to help find a cure for the insidious disease in the medical field. More …

A’s pitcher Breslow is a bighearted brainiac

The smartest man in baseball recoils at being called the smartest man in baseball. It sounds too pompous, too arbitrary. And then Craig Breslow starts waxing on about the wonders of DNA sequencing, and his Oakland Athletics teammates hoot and holler as they throw a miniature Nerf football around the clubhouse, and, well, some truths are self-evident, one of them being that these men were not created equal.

So it’s no surprise that the smartest man in baseball is on a mission: He wants to eradicate a disease. Lofty goal for anyone, let alone someone who spends his days as a relief pitcher, and yet Breslow doesn’t give up easily. He graduated from Yale, got drafted, almost went to med school at NYU, bounced around the minors, made it to the big leagues, bounced around there as well, won a World Series and, now that he’s a big leaguer for good, gladly uses the pulpit afforded to major leaguers. Read the full story here »

September 14, 2010 · Yahoo.com

Craig Breslow ’02 Nominated for MLB’s Clemente Award for Community Service

On-line Voting Now Available on Major League Baseball Website

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Former Yale lefthander Craig Breslow ’02, a reliever with the Oakland Athletics, has been nominated for Major League Baseball’s Roberto Clemente Award for humanitarian and community service. Breslow founded the Strike 3 Foundation, a charitable organization that heightens awareness, mobilizes support and raises funding for childhood cancer research. He created the foundation in honor of his sister Lesley, a survivor of pediatric thyroid cancer. On-line voting for the award is available on Major League Baseball’s website, mlb.com, through Oct. 8.

Breslow was honored by the A’s in a pregame ceremony before the Sept. 8 game against the Seattle Mariners at the Oakland Coliseum. He is one of 30 candidates for the Clemente Award, which is named in honor of the Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Famer who died in a plane crash in 1972 while delivering supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. Read the full story here »

September 13, 2010 · YaleBulldogs.com

Trumbull High School grad to receive Roberto Clemente Award tonight

Craig Breslow, a 1998 graduate of Trumbull High School and current pitcher for the Oakland A’s, will be recognized as the A’s nominee for the national 2010 Roberto Clemente Award during an on-field ceremony prior to game tonight, Wednesday, Sept. 8.

The game is set for 10:05 p.m. (EST) against the Seattle Mariners. More …

Sister inspires Clemente candidate Breslow

OAKLAND — The relief help Craig Breslow lends to the A’s is undeniable, but at the end of the day, it pales in comparison to the aid he’s offered in the community, a reason for which he’s been selected as the club’s candidate for the annual Roberto Clemente Award presented by Chevy.

Breslow exudes quite the passion for helping children through medicine, and to that end, he created the Strike 3 Foundation in 2008. He uses the foundation to honor his sister Lesley, a pediatric thyroid cancer survivor, in hopes of heightening awareness, mobilizing support and raising funds for childhood cancer research. Read the full story here »

September 7, 2010 · MLB.com

Trumbull native Breslow perserveres

NEW YORK — There was always that confidence, that steadfast belief that Craig Breslow could get out major-league hitters. It wasn’t just the fact that he had an above average fastball. It wasn’t that he had guts, guile and a fierce determination to show that he wasn’t some flash-in-the-pan kid from Yale.

The only question was: Would he ever get a chance? More …