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George Vecsey's column in Tuesday's NYTimes:
On July 4, the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s immortal “luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech, Major League Baseball will help fight the disease that bears the name of its doomed hero.
In 15 home ballparks that day, baseball will seek to raise money and awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which currently has no cure. Major League Baseball will announce the details of this program Tuesday.
The event is the brainchild of Michael Goldsmith, 57, a law professor in Utah, who was given what he calls a “death sentence” in September 2006, the ominous signs of A.L.S.
Goldsmith’s first impulse was to turn to the sport of his childhood, that nearly perfect world where players hit and run, pitch and catch. After a joyous week at a fantasy camp of the Baltimore Orioles, his favorite team as a boy in New York, Goldsmith began to identify with Gehrig, the great Yankee slugger who retired July 4, 1939, and died June 2, 1941.
In an article in Newsweek in November, Goldsmith challenged baseball to publicly take on the killer disease on the Gehrig anniversary, on the basis that baseball had gotten great mileage from the legend of Gehrig. Goldsmith’s proposal was later amplified in The New York Times.
Then an amazing thing happened. Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, read Goldsmith’s suggestion. And Selig called a meeting.
“Baseball is a social institution,” Selig said the other day, referring to baseball’s deep and daily roots.
Although baseball can be criticized for many things, the business often recognizes its civic role, taking up causes like remembering Jackie Robinson and other heroes, and fighting cancer and other diseases. Selig, 74, who is a legitimate baseball buff, has watched the 1942 Gehrig movie, “The Pride of the Yankees,” at least 50 times.
“What I’ve always heard is that Gehrig was exactly as he was portrayed,” Selig said. “There’s no question Babe Ruth was a great player, but people tell me, ‘Commissioner, you don’t know how great Gehrig was.’ ”
Selig was referring to Gehrig’s 2,130-game streak from 1925 to 1939, a record until 1995; his career batting average of .340; and his 493 home runs. With legs like stone pillars, Gehrig also stole home 15 times. The only thing that slowed him was A.L.S., “a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord,” according to the A.L.S. Association.
Goldsmith, who has a slower version of A.L.S., continues to teach at Brigham Young University and lobby against the disease. He has gained allies. Selig turned over the project to Jacqueline Parkes, the chief marketing officer for M.L.B., who, by total coincidence, had a personal connection.
Her father, Dr. James C. Parkes II, an orthopedic surgeon, was the Mets’ team physician from 1974 to 1991. In 1995 he was told he had a neurological ailment that his daughter described as somewhere between A.L.S. and Parkinson’s Disease. He died in 1999, at age 64.
Parkes said she was deeply pleased when Selig told her what they would be doing for the 70th anniversary.
“Typically, we don’t do anniversaries except for 50 or 75, but there is nothing typical about A.L.S.,” she said.
With Parkes at the point, baseball has forged a working partnership with four organizations: Project A.L.S.; A.L.S. Therapy Development Institute; the A.L.S. Association; and M.D.A.’s Augie’s Quest, led by Augie Nieto, a co-founder of the company that created the Lifecycle exercise machine, who is battling his own case of A.L.S.
To Goldsmith’s delight, he was included in every teleconference as Parkes organized the events for July 4, when 30 clubs will auction off items worn by players that day. In this current recession, there is concern about how much money can be raised for research, but clubs and players will be encouraged to contribute. Selig indicated that M.L.B. would make a contribution.
On the anniversary, Gehrig’s speech will be read during the seventh-inning stretch — the real one, written by Gehrig, a Columbia University man, and not the somewhat-altered version that was delivered by Gary Cooper in the movie.
Goldsmith said his own relationship with Gehrig had deepened over the months, “helping me face my fears, face my demons.” He added, “I don’t know if Gehrig was religious, but I do know how physically brave he was.”
Goldsmith has also explored his spiritual side, “what the Buddhists call learning to swim well through the ocean of suffering,” he said. Lately, he has been reading Viktor E. Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” the spiritual journey of a Holocaust survivor.
Goldsmith says he derives great solace from baseball.
“Their response has been in keeping with the ‘Field of Dreams’ image,” he said, referring to the movie in which faith in baseball links the generations.
“They have been honest, straightforward, about everything,” he said of the M.L.B. officials. “They have exposed me to the sunny side of baseball, not just the financial side. They have a heart.”
Goldsmith hopes to travel to a major league stadium on July 4 and read part of Gehrig’s speech, at an event he envisioned and that baseball will make happen.
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