Marywood baseball will take on Keystone College in a new setting this year all for a good cause. The Pacers will play the Giants at the newly renovated PNC Field during the Bill Howerton Inaugural Strikeout Cancer Weekend.

For 16 years, Bill Howerton gained immense respect in the area as the head coach of the University of Scranton’s baseball team, retiring in 2002. Howerton spent a season playing for the San Francisco Giants and then returned to the Scranton area to manage the Scranton Red Soxx and Wilkes Barre/Scranton Twins before coaching the Royals in 1986.

Howerton passed away in August 2012, but his legacy lives on. (The Times-Tribune)

Marywood will be the host school for this CSAC game on Saturday, April 13. High school baseball will take the field first when Pocono Mountain East takes on North Pocono at 11 a.m. before the Pacers and Giants take the field. The Giants are the four-time defending conference champions.

“This is a great opportunity. It is the biggest game of the season, plus we are playing for a great cause,” said management major and Pacer player Erik Pulkkinen.
This game isn’t just about winning for many on Marywood’s baseball team. For some, it means a lot more.

Sophomore Pacer Andrew Rabel, for example knows this game is more than just trying to take down the four time conference champions.

“Cancer affects so many people, whether from having it to knowing someone that goes through the treatments, such as my mother, who has gone through it twice,” Rabel said. “To know we are doing this event to help raise money to fight, it makes me happy.”

There will be no charge to get in the games. Instead, ads are being sold for a game program and t-shirts will also be sold. There will also be raffles and collection buckets at the event. All money raised goes to the American Cancer Society.

The Bill Howerton Inaugural Strikeout Cancer Weekend will be April 13-14 at PNC Field, home of the Scranton/Wilkes Barre RailRiders, the AAA team of the New York Yankees.