When Tim Wakefield started signing autographs in Chicago at one of his many Jimmy Fund events for teens with cancer, a kid named Robbie — who lost a leg to the disease — shot up and started hopping down the grandstand stairs.

“We all saw, and we were all a little bit in horror, like, ‘No, stop!'” Lisa Scherber, director of Patient and Family Services at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, remembered Monday. “But while we’re staring, Tim jumped up and literally ran up the stairs, put Robbie on his back and carried him down. That’s who he was.

“He carried all of our kids on his back,” Scherber continued. “He carried all of us on his back.”

The legendary Red Sox knuckleballer died at the age of 57 Sunday after a private struggle with brain cancer. As a broadcaster, father and much more, his legacy extends well beyond the baseball field.

One piece of that legacy was shaped through decades working with the Boston-based Jimmy Fund, an organization that raises money for cancer research and treatment at the Dana-Farber Institute.

Even in his last day, Scherber said, Wakefield was planning on walking the last mile and a half of the annual Jimmy Fund Walk to Fenway Park.

“That was when he was going to take this fight, and he was going to make it public on his own terms,” Scherber said, referring to a teammate’s unauthorized outing of his battle days ago. “He felt very, very safe here. He felt at home here, because of his over 20 years being a part of the Jimmy Fund. I think being a patient was just another chapter for him, that he was ready to tackle.”

Wakefield began working with the fund during his first year with the Red Sox in 1995, Scherber said. At their first teen event with the team that year, she noted, he was the first player out.

“He opened up his heart to these teens,” the director said. “And when they saw Tim Wakefield, the knuckleballer, coming out to see them, it was just — it was beautiful. Because we can do everything for these kids, but we can’t do that.”

Wakefield served as the Red Sox’s first Jimmy Fund captain. But even without the title, Scherber said, he continued to be a captain for the fund every year.

He shaped the role, she said, showing Red Sox players and other athletes how to really get involved in the mission.

“It’s not easy, meeting 50 teenagers with cancer,” said Scherber. “And he always made it easy. He made it — they just saw Tim, you know, they didn’t see the Red Sox player.”

He brought “so much joy and so much magic” to the institute, Scherber said, and left an “immeasurable” impact.

“We’re gonna be better because of him,” Scherber said. “And we’re grateful. We’re so grateful that he was part of our team and he was our friend.”