Lester's No-Hitter Inspires Cancer Survivors

May 21, 2008 — -- When Boston Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester took the mound for Monday night's game against the Kansas City Royals, 12-year-old Wil Vaillancourt of Marblehead, Mass., at first, could not be bothered to watch. Engrossed in his computer game, Vaillancourt only glanced at the television periodically to see the score.

But midway through the televised game, when Lester appeared poised to pitch a no-hitter, Wil's father, Quin, mentioned nonchalantly, "You know, Jon Lester is a cancer survivor."

Wil was enraptured. But his reasons for pulling for Lester may have been even more personal than those of the thousands of fans that crowded Fenway Park that night.

Wil has leukemia. For him, watching Lester pitch his way into the history books was particularly inspiring.

"I was surprised that [Lester] did have cancer, seeing how good he was pitching," Wil said. "I was surprised how he could be doing that."

The 24-year-old Lester, who sat out the end of the 2006 season and returned to the team last year after completing treatment, held the Royals to no hits in a 7-0 win.

The next morning, Wil showed up at his chemotherapy appointment sporting a bold Red Sox T-shirt. He hopes to bounce back just like Lester has, and to one day become a pilot.

"I think that from Wil's perspective, watching Jon Lester bounce back from his cancer the way he has and do so well in this game, he definitely hopes he can do that well as well," Quin Vaillancourt said of his son. "I would say it's definitely given him a lot of inspiration.

"And I also have a feeling that as a 12-year-old, he doesn't expect anything less than coming back, you know?"

For lymphoma survivor Lester, the evening was the latest achievement in a career once threatened by cancer. Last year, the lefty hurler pitched a clinching victory for the Sox in game four of the World Series. Monday night's feat represented the first no-hitter for Boston since then-rookie Clay Buchholz threw one in September.

Perhaps more significantly, Lester's no-hitter comes after he was forced to miss the end of the 2006 season, diagnosed with a rare but treatable form of non-Hodgkin's called anaplastic large cell lymphoma, on Aug. 31, 2006. But by December of that year, it was reported that Lester's latest CT scan showed no signs of the disease, which appeared to be in remission.