Today, June 2, 2021, is the official day dedicated to Lou Gehrig (Lou Gehrig Day) dell’Major League Baseball (MLB). The Association with SLAncio Onlus, founded by Andrea Zicchieri, is proud to support this important day on behalf of the Italian SLA community. The initiative was organized together with a network of collaborators international SLAs.
Lou Gehrig (June 19, 1903 – June 2, 1941) was a famous professional baseball player in the United States for 17 years before losing his life to ALS. ALS has long been called Gehrig’s disease. In Italy it is estimated more than 6,000 people affected by the disease with an annual increase of about 1,500-2,000 people.
You have heard Lou Gehrig’s iconic oration “Luckiest Man Alive” countless times. You close your eyes and see it in black and white, bowing your head in front of the steel microphones and wiping your tears as he says goodbye to baseball. You can hear the 62,000 fans in Yankee Stadium collectively chant “We Want Lou” as Gehrig nicknamed the Iron Horse stood in front of the crowd one last time – not long before. that a little-known disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) took his life.
But what you may not know about that speech is that it was done on Lou Gehrig’s Appreciation Day. It’s time to take back this special day. For any person with ALS who struggles like hell for a cure, just like Lou did.
Finally, the time has come to have an official Lou Gehrig Day throughout Major League Baseball (MLB) that honors his legacy: Not just in a stadium, but in all of baseball, June 2 from 2021 onwards.
The Major League Baseball Players Association in the United States and Executive Director Tony Clark confirmed their support for the initiative on October 6, 2020. The official press release can be found below. https://lg4day.com/press-release-2020-10-06.pdf
conSLAncio confirmed support for the initiative on 8 October 2020.
Information on the Lou Gehrig Day Committee
The Lou Gehrig Day Committee is made up of People with ALS, ALS Caregivers and ALS Families. The group is proud to represent the ALS community as a whole to raise awareness and find cures!
The members are:
(pSLA) Bryan Wayne Galentine, Adam Wilson, Larry Falivena, Pat Quinn, Phil Green, Sarah Nauser-Olsen, Eric Stevens, Kevin Heller, Matthew Giarratano (cSLA) Mike Piscotty, Tamara Hilliard, Lesley Heller (fSLA) Chuck Haberstroh, Kate Fagan, Steve Haberstroh, Tom Haberstroh, Larry Kaplan
For more information, please visit: https://lg4day.com/
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Information on conSLAncio
The association conSLAncio Onlus (non-profit) was founded in 2013 on the initiative of Andrea Zicchieri, a native of Terracina (LT), who for some years has been facing a diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). conSLAncio deals with improving the quality standards of assistance provided to ALS patients and families, in all regions of Italy with microdonations and with interacting with the scientific community for the development of new drugs and informing about everything that is being tested in the world. In 2017, with SLAncio helped to approve the first drug (after over 20 years of riluzole alone) that slows down ALS: Radicut. In 2019, conSLAncio created the first list of international-LIVE SLA trials in Italy completely dedicated to SLA. July 2019, with SLAncio in collaboration with the BEATRICE APS Association together with the bathing establishment “Primo Circolo Remiero Velico” have opened the first beach equipped for the disabled completely free in Terracina (LT), Italy: SpiaggiAbile®. withSLAncio brought ALSUntangled, an international program that evaluates alternative and / or off-label treatments for ALS, to Italy for the first time. We are the first Italian ALS association, led by a patient, with a scientific poster at the International Symposium on ALS / MND (2020).
Nicoletta De Rossi, President and Operations Manager, of the Onlus conSLAncio Association, together with Dr. Ing, Silverio Conte, Head of International Relations, have decided to found the first international office in Boston in 2017. The opening will allow the development of new initiatives to help the Italian community and the scientific community. conSLAncio is the first and only Italian SLA association with an office abroad.
For more information, visit: https://www.conslancio.it/
For the conSLAncio press office, please contact: [email protected]
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