"New York Yankee Lou Gehrig was immortalized 70 years ago today by a farewell speech that was more about friendship than baseball, more about living than dying.

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,'' was how the first baseman began his inspiring address to fans at old Yankee Stadium on "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" July 4, 1939.

The "bad break" he got was a death sentence called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – ALS for short – an incurable, fatal neuromuscular disease. "The Iron Horse" of baseball, so robust he played a record 2,130 consecutive games until ALS struck, died two years later.

There is still no cure for ALS.

Major League Baseball is honouring Gehrig today by having all players, coaches and on-field personnel wear a "4 ALS" patch, as well as putting the patch on the first-base bag at home parks. The bases will be auctioned off with proceeds to ALS.

The Yankee slugger's heartfelt speech has been romanticized over the decades, generally accepted as a graceful retirement announcement rather than a dying man's message about ALS. In that respect, Gehrig's speech has been a blessing and a curse for the poorly understood disease that attacks indiscriminately, says Suzanne Clancy, director of support services for the ALS Society of Ontario.

"If I say to people, I'm the director of the ALS Society, they'll say, `Oh, Alzheimer's?' '' Clancy said, adding that 1,000 Ontarians are ill with ALS at any given time.

"Then I'll have to say (it's) Lou Gehrig's disease, but we're even losing that identity with the younger population because they don't know who Lou Gehrig is.""