Dave Dravecky promoting cholesterol screening at AT&T Park

Former San Francisco Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky will be at AT&T Park today promoting National Cholesterol Education Month, in partnership with AstraZeneca and of course, the San Francisco Giants.

"Free cholesterol screenings for adults aged 18 and older will be conducted in partnership with the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park on Saturday, September 27th from 10 AM to 1:30 PM."

Dravecky was kind enough to talk to us not only about his cause, but about his life and time pitching with the Giants. We’ll have the full interview up tonight, but here’s a bit of why his so interested in you getting a cholesterol screening.

Dravecky says the screening is important to him because it has had a direct impact on his life – his wife Jan’s parents both died of massive heart attacks, instantly.

"My mother-in-law was a Riverfront Stadium, I believe it was 1982. They had never seen me pitch. My father-in-law and mother-in-law came down from Youngstown, Ohio to Cincinnati to see me pitch for the first time. They were in the ballpark, at the stadium, and I’ll never forget, it was probably 7th inning of the first game and I was in the bullpen. The phone rang and I got called up to get up and warm up to possibly come in and pitch. And I saw my father-in-law standing up because they were sitting relatively close at the time. I happen to notice that and I didn’t think much of it and went about my business. What I found out later was that my mother-in-law had looked at my mother, who was sitting next to her and said, ‘Donna, I don’t know how you do this. I am so nervous for David’. With that, my mother kind of smiled, laughed a little bit and said, ‘I’m really nervous’. She turned her head and the next minute my mom looked back and my mother-in-law was dead. She had had a massive heart attack at the ballpark.Fast forward about seven years later, six years later, my father-in-law was at work. He was a pharmacist. He was laughing and telling a joke and the next minute he was lying on the floor, dead of a massive heart attack."

This is why he agreed to be a part of this, and to be the spokesperson for AstraZeneca for tomorrow’s screenings. It’s important to his family because heart disease runs in the family of his wife, and he believe’s it’s important for everyone to get screened and know what they are up against so they can better take care of themselves.