Big-League Support : Benefit: Men’s baseball league donates proceeds from its all-star game to help pay medical bills of a 3-year-old who has a rare form of cancer.

With his baseball cap hanging low on his head, his cheeks flushed with excitement, 3-year-old Matt Jackson aimed carefully, then pitched a strike to open the Southern California Men’s Senior Baseball League All-Star game.

It was a moment the little Costa Mesa boy and his family had been looking forward to for weeks. It was the high point of an afternoon at a baseball park in the city of Commerce on Sunday, reminiscent of the days before Matt was found to have a rare form of cancer.

“This was a good day,” said Matt’s father, Reginald Jackson, a ballplayer and team manager in the Southern California Men’s Senior Baseball League, which is participating in efforts to provide financial support to the family. “We’ve been stuck in the hospital for so long.”

Since Matt was found to have Burkitt’s lymphoma in late January, his family said he’s truly lived up to the title of his favorite song, “2 Legit 2 Quit” by Hammer. Despite undergoing six difficult rounds of chemotherapy that left him bald and numerous other treatments at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Matt continues to “hang in there,” his father said.

During his special four-hour pass from the hospital Sunday, Matt hardly sat still, running around the stadium, playing catch with his older brother, Renny, and working on his swing in the batter’s cage.

His personalized “Mattman 1” baseball uniform was coated in dust by the end of the afternoon, and more than once his mom, Jane Jackson, had to scoop him up in her arms to wipe the sweat and dirt from his hairless head--a condition Matt doesn’t seem to mind, since it reminds him of his hero, basketball star Michael Jordan.

“He said, ‘I want to stay a bald-head man,’ ” his mother said. “He loves it.”

Indeed, little seems to have daunted Matt’s spirit.

“He’s like this every day, even when he’s on chemo,” Jane Jackson said after the baseball game. “He’s a real personable kind of guy. He gets a lot of attention at the hospital. It’s all one big family. The hospital really pushes that. You just appreciate every day you have with each of them and just go from there.”

It was in early January that Matt started complaining of a recurring toothache. With a little pain reliever, however, the problem seemed to go away.

Then several days later during a family dinner, Reginald Jackson went to wipe spaghetti sauce from his son’s mouth and noticed a lump about the size of a pea under one of Matt’s teeth. A dentist initially thought the cyst was caused by a permanent tooth trying to break through and scheduled a routine outpatient surgery for Jan. 31.

But what was supposed to be a half-hour procedure went on for two hours, with oral surgeons ending up removing two-thirds of Matt’s jaw after discovering lesions there.

They diagnosed Matt’s disease as Burkitt’s lymphoma, a malignancy of the lymphatic system seen mostly in central Africa and characterized by lesions of the jaw or abdomen that eventually affect the central nervous system. It is seen mostly in children and is believed caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, according to Barron’s Medical Guide.

While Matt struggles to get better--he’s been given a 50% chance of surviving the cancer--his family continues to struggle under staggering hospital bills, which have been running at more than $40,000 a month.

Reginald Jackson, a mechanical aerospace engineer, was laid off from Rockwell International Corp. in October, 1990, and has been trying to make ends meet by working as an independent consultant. Jane Jackson works as a nurse at Mission Ambulatory Surgicenter, a Mission Viejo medical center, but her insurance covers only a small portion of Matt’s hospital bills.

But thanks to unsolicited help from friends, players in the baseball league, the family’s church and strangers from as far away as Florida who read about Matt in the baseball league’s magazine, the Jacksons are receiving some much-needed financial help.

The baseball league alone hopes to raise $4,000 by selling “Matt Jackson Fund” uniform patches. All proceeds from the all-star game on Sunday, which would normally benefit the league, will go to help pay for Matt’s medical bills instead. The proceeds have not yet been totaled.

“Some things are more important than baseball,” said Dennis Swartout, president of the Southern California section of the league.

Meanwhile, Matt still has to undergo two more rounds of chemotherapy to finish his eight-month treatment program.

“Then it’s just waiting,” Jane Jackson said. “The first year is the most critical.”

Donations to assist the family can be sent to Help Matt Jackson Account, care of Gary L. Peterson, P.O. Box 5098, Fullerton, 92635.