To Steve in Montana and hello to all! *** PLEASE READ ***
I can help! I work for the ALS Association Evergreen Chapter (www.alsa-ec.org). Our Chapter covers Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska and there are ALS Chapters all across the county to help assist patients and families with ALS. I'm located in Spokane, WA and we are currently trying to build our "Strike Out ALS" nights with baseball teams and we need all the volunteers we can get not only for our chapter but across the country to make this happen! We need people like you to help volunteer. Please contact me at jenniferh@alsa-ec.org for further information. I also lost my mom to ALS in Montana over 16 years ago so it is my passion to work on building our programs and services for ALS patients and finding a CURE!
Warmly,
Jennifer Hanson
Development Associate, The ALS Association Evergreen Chapter
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Batting for the Cure
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We hung out with former Orioles, most of who were blue-collar guys thrilled to have made it to the majors. They didn't just give us cursory face time; they coached us intensively and did their best to improve our game. Everyone played, talked and laughed baseball. Orioles manager Dave Trembley told us how he tried to get thrown out of a game without using cuss words; it wasn't easy, and he succeeded only after calling the umpire a "den mother." There was much more. We also shared life stories, and I learned that I was not the only one battling a terminal disease.
At some point, we talked about what Major League Baseball could do to fight ALS, and I realized that next July 4 will mark the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's famous farewell speech at Yankee Stadium. Since his retirement, more than 600,000 Americans have shared Gehrig's fate, as medical science has made virtually no progress toward finding a cure. Through the years some players and a few teams have occasionally helped raise funds, but Major League Baseball has never taken comprehensive action against ALS. Defeating ALS will require the same type of determination, dedication and drive that Gehrig and Cal Ripken demonstrated when they set superhuman records for consecutive games played. With this in mind, why not make July 4, 2009, ALS-Lou Gehrig Day? Dedicate this grim anniversary to funding research for a cure; every major- and minor-league stadium might project the video of Gehrig's farewell, and teams, players and fans could contribute to this cause. An event of this magnitude has the potential to raise millions, dwarfing the relatively scant sums that ALS walks, rides and similar small-scale efforts have produced.
To this day, Lou Gehrig is still named in some polls as the greatest player in baseball history; by all accounts, he also had a reputation for uncommon decency. His legacy for greatness will live forever, but it's time to end the heartbreaking legacy of the disease that bears his name. Major League Baseball can help make that happen.
Of course, this is just a distant dream of a single ALS patient who played baseball every day of every summer growing up. I now look to the game of my youth to help give me and others like me a chance for life.
Goldsmith lives in Heber City, Utah.
© 2008
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