KAPALUA, HAWAII — Since 1999, almost 13,000 Major League Baseball (MLB)players, coaches, staff, and family members have been screened for skin cancer under a program with the trademarked name of “Play Smart When It Comes to the Sun.”
Physicians from the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) found more than 490 suspicious lesions on the “boys of summer” and those who stay out in the sun with them. Those 490 lesions included 319 suspected basal cell carcinomas, 37 suspected squamous cell carcinomas, and 43 suspected melanomas.
“Our players … no longer ask for baby oil and iodine. They know SPF numbers as well as they know the grams of protein in the shakes they are drinking,” Stephen Donohue, assistant trainer of the New York Yankees, said at the Winter Clinical Dermatology Conference, Hawaii.
“The beauty of this program is educating the public,” Mr. Donohue added. “High school kids—they see Derek Jeter or one of the public service announcements [and they think], 'If these guys are using sunblock, it must be good for me, too.'”
Public service advertisements from the program have led to more than 96 million media impressions, as well as scoreboard admonishments to put on sunscreen, Dr. Darrell Rigel told physicians at the conference, which was sponsored by the Center for Bio-Medical Communication Inc.
Dr. Rigel said the program was the idea of dermatologist Kenneth Wasserman of Drexel University, Philadelphia. Dr. Wasserman and Dr. Rigel proposed it to MLB and the MLB Players Association, and the AAD implemented the program when Rigel was president of the academy. “An important part of skin cancer prevention is in sports per se,” he said. “We know in many sports we get significant sun exposure.”
The typical player participated in Little League ball or its equivalent and has been spending time in the sun ever since, noted Dr. Rigel of New York University Medical Center. Even after they come up to the big leagues and play more games at night, the players take to the field for practice during the day.
“It's not just the players, but also their families and the people who work at the stadium each year who get lots of sun,” he added. One police officer wanted to go on television to promote sun protection after a Play Smart screening detected basal cell carcinoma. He was an undercover cop, however, and had to stay anonymous.
Two years ago, at a Play Smart screening of the San Diego Padres, a dermatologist found a suspicious mole on second baseman Mark Loretta's chest. A biopsy revealed melanoma. A California native with a family history of skin cancer, Loretta (now with the Boston Red Sox) has since joined AAD efforts to promote sun safe behavior to fans.
A diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma helped to make pitcher Derek Lowe a sunscreen advocate, according to Dr. Mary E. Maloney, an AAD officer who screened his former team, the Boston Red Sox, for the Play Smart program. In December 2002, Lowe underwent surgery on a large growth detected on his nose in the off-season.
Dr. Maloney, director of dermatologic surgery at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester, recalled in an interview how Lowe (since traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers) would issue warnings to other players if he saw them leaving the dugout without sunscreen.
Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling also has been supportive, Dr. Maloney added. He and his wife, Shonda, started their own foundation to promote sun protection and screening after Mrs. Schilling was treated for melanoma.