6 – Joe Torre
Former Yankees manager Joe Torre, 76, has been an outspoken advocate for prostate cancer awareness ever since he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease in 1999. “What scared me initially, in addition to my cancer, was that I didn’t have the answers I needed,” he said in a 2000 interview with the Johns Hopkins Prostate Bulletin.
“It certainly was a very difficult time emotionally. I was a mess, my blood pressure had skyrocketed — all from being scared about the cancer and what I had to do about it.” Thankfully, Torre had help by his side from his wife, Ali. “I don’t know what I would have done if Ali hadn’t been there to get me through it all. It later became very clear to me that you need a spouse or a good friend to be there for you, to keep you on level ground and to give you hope,” he said in the bulletin. “Otherwise, saddled with a cancer diagnosis, it becomes so easy to think of your cancer as some sort of a dark hole, and that there is no way out for you.”