SEATTLE — Dr. Anthony Fauci was presented with an honorary Hutch Award on Tuesday night prior to the Seattle Mariners‘ game against the New York Yankees.
The Hutch Award has been awarded by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center based in Seattle and typically to a Major League Baseball player who “best exemplifies the determined spirit of the late Fred Hutchinson, a pitcher and manager who died of cancer in 1964 at age 45.”
Fauci is the second person to be given an honorary Hutch Award, along with former President Jimmy Carter in 2016.
Fauci was greeted by mostly cheers from the Seattle crowd with some boos mixed in. He threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Seattle manager Scott Servais. It was far better pitch than when he threw out the first pitch in Washington in July 2020.
Servais had Fauci autograph a facemask after catching the first pitch.
Fauci is President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Fauci has been a vocal supporter of vaccines and other preventive measures against COVID-19. He said he expects to retire at the end of Biden’s current term.