MLB Commemorating Lou Gehrig’s Famous Speech With ALS Awareness Campaign
February 5th, 2009 ·

MLB.com’s Barry Bloom reported that MLB has launched the “4*ALS Awareness” campaign to the commemorate the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s famous speech.

MLB “has teamed with four major non-profit organizations to find a cure for the illness that destroys the nerve cells controlling muscles, causes complete paralysis and ultimately leads to death an average of 3-5 years after diagnosis.” The campaign “will culminate with Gehrig’s words being read at all Major League ballparks where games are played this coming July 4, during the seventh-inning stretch.”

“For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.”
– Lou Gehrig, July 4, 1939

Bloom added that as part of the commemoration, MLB “will ask all players to wear a ‘4*ALS’ patch on their chest.”

Teaming Up: The four participating organizations are The ALS Association, ALS TDI, Augie’s Quest (the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s ALS research initiative), and Project A.L.S. MLB.com will also conduct an online auction to raise funds for the initiative (Barry Bloom, MLB.com, 2/3). Read the entire MLB.com piece