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Aurora Man's 'Youth Cancer Baseball Tour' Gets Backing But Funds Still Needed

DENVER (CBS4) - The Major League Baseball season began on Sunday and the Colorado Rockies play Monday in Arizona, and one Colorado man is taking on a big challenge. He's trying to visit all 30 major league ballparks and he's taking child cancer patients with him.

In the past few years Greg Durfee usually goes to a handful of ballparks funded solely by donations and usually out of his own pocket. Now a big company is backing him and he's hoping to visit every team.

Baseball Cancer Tour Greg Durfee
Greg Durfee is interviewed by CBS4's Jeff Todd (credit: CBS)

"Since 2010 we've taken about 500 families slash kids to major league ballparks," said Durfee, who lives in Aurora.

Now Durfee is trying to take that many this year alone. He already has his tickets in hand for Monday's game in Tampa.

Baseball Cancer Tour JB RAW4

"And then we'll hit Miami, Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C.," he said.

It's the first of six trips Durfee plans to make this year for his Youth Cancer Baseball Tour.

"We've got groups of 20 to 30 in each park."

For the past six years Durfee has relied on donations.

Baseball Cancer Tour JB R6AW
(credit: CBS)

"When the families get involved then it's like a partnership," he said. "A lot of the families that we've dealt with in the past go with us again."

This past offseason he started to get some big names backing him like Zappos and even celebrity charities have been involved. But Durfee says there's only one reason to do what he does -- watching the kids go from cancer patient to cancer survivor.

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(credit: CBS)

"There's a couple in Colorado that I'm fairly close with and then there's a couple in California because we originally started there," he said. "Those are the really good stories and the positive stories that outweigh the others."

The Youth Cancer Baseball Tour will stop at Coors Field in August -- if Durfee can make it that long. He still needs help raising enough money for the season. Visit the Youth Cancer Baseball Tour website or a GoFundMe page to donate.

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