Chris Patnaude’s socks are pink. The laces of his football cleats are pink, the band on his left elbow is pink, and the Under Armor sleeve on his right arm also is pink.

If you examined his white blood cells beneath a microscope, you would also see a fair amount of pink. It’s the color that eosiniphils, the rarest type of white blood cell, turn when stained with laboratory dye. In most people’s bodies, eosiniphils makes up no more than four per cent of all white blood cells, and helps fight infections. But for Chris, 14, who is in eighth grade at the Edgartown School, the eosiniphils are rampant and, as his mother Tanya explained: “They fight against him.”

Before the fall football season started Lou Paciello was a bit worried about numbers. Mr. Paciello had joined with several other parents to help re-establish a youth football program on the Island, but he didn’t know how many players to expect at practice.

It’s barely a month into the new season, but youth football has already exceeded expectations, Mr. Paciello said. At a recent Wednesday practice, third and fourth graders worked in small groups with their coaches. Some wore white jerseys; the program had run out of the purple jerseys ordered before the season.

The top striped bass keep getting bigger and with two weeks to go in the 68th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby so does the field. More than 2,600 fishermen are registered in the contest and more and more keep showing up.

“I’d be really pleased if we got over 3,000,” said derby chairman John Custer.

The contest ends on Saturday, Oct. 19.

Overall nearly 12,000 pounds of fish have been weighed in as of Thursday morning. Striped bass total 5,300.26 pounds and bluefish total 4,288.88 pounds.