Ride For Life: Baseball players helping battle ALS

BARRINGTON COURIER-REVIEW ? May 8, 2003 Barrington, IL BY TOM JOHNSTON STAFF WRITER

A Barrington man is getting local baseball players to step up to plate to raise money and awareness to fight Lou Gehrig?s disease.

Bob Lee, well known for his 2001 solo cross-country bicycle ride which raised more than $72,000 for research and patient care, has dialed up more than 60 baseball players from Barrington High School to collect money this weekend in ?Tag Days? at local streets and stores.

?It taps another resource,? Lee said, commenting on the importance of including younger generations in the battle against this disabling and deadly disease.

The event, now in its third year, was founded by former St. Anne School teacher Christine Panos, who lost her mother to the disease. Panos and Lee are co-chairs of this year?s effort.

All the proceeds will go to research and patient care at Northwestern University and the Les Turner Foundation, which has raised more than $21 million in the last 26 years.

Lee said he hopes to double the $5,000 the drive raised in 2001, a goal more realistic now that it will be a two-day event Friday and Saturday. The event raised $3,000 in 2002.

This year?s event is special because 2003 marks the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Lou Gehrig, the legendary New York Yankee who was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 1937 and died from it in 1941.

Lee said that in many ways the various efforts to raise money and awareness for the disease seek to memorialize Gehrig until a cure is found, but it would be great one day to remember the man for his baseball prowess instead of for the disease that ended his life at the age of 37.

ALS is a disease of the motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, which causes a progressive loss of motor control. More than 5,000 people diagnosed with ALS die each year.