HEBER CITY — Michael Goldsmith winces at the memory. There he was, finally wearing Yankee pinstripes, standing on the pitcher's mound in Yankee Stadium. Over to the side, Derek Jeter was looking on, and A-Rod, and Mariano Rivera. Fifty thousand fans were in the stands; the stadium all but sold out on the Fourth of July.
Mark Teixeira, the Yankees first baseman, trotted over to catch the ceremonial first pitch.
And...
"One of my worst throws ever," moans Goldsmith. "It was just awful."
But, then, that was the point.
Goldsmith has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, the degenerative neuromuscular disorder for which there is no known cure. In September 2006, when he could still easily throw a baseball from centerfield to home plate, the popular BYU law professor was diagnosed with the disease.
Thirty-four short months later and he can barely walk or comb his hair.
But he can stand up for a cause, and what the 58-year-old Goldsmith pulled off last Saturday ranks as the biggest single-day awareness of ALS since the day 70 years ago, on July 4, 1939, when Gehrig, recently diagnosed with ALS, stood in Yankee Stadium and announced his retirement.
In a guest editorial published by Newsweek magazine last November, Goldsmith challenged Major League Baseball to do something on the 70th birthday of Gehrig's stirring speech — some call it the Gettysburg Address of baseball — that would draw attention to the insidious disease and aid ALS research.
Seven decades have passed, he pointed out, and still the disease remains unbeaten.
MLB commissioner Bud Selig read the editorial and, within days, began organizing support for the commemoration and the cause.
This past Saturday, on America's birthday, every major league game paused to remember Lou Gehrig and urge support to find a cure for the disease nicknamed after him. In big-league parks across the country, portions of Gehrig's "Luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech were read during the seventh- inning stretch, and all coaches, managers, players and umpires wore a "4ALS" patch — 4 was Gehrig's number.
In New York, the man who got the 4ALS movement started was invited to travel from his home in Utah and throw out the first pitch in Yankee Stadium.
Even though he rooted for the Baltimore Orioles as a youngster, for Goldsmith, who grew up in Queens, suiting up for the hometown Yankees was a dream come true — although his physical circumstances were anything but a dream. "I threw it underhand," he says in mock disgust.
Humor, as his law school students at BYU would attest, is a Goldsmith trademark. He came to teach at the LDS Church-owned university in 1985, lured by the mountains and the skiing, and never got tired of poking fun at a Jewish guy with a New York accent winding up in Provo.
He often said it was the only way he could take advantage of affirmative action.
Another Goldsmith trademark was constantly telling his students that if they tried hard enough they could achieve things thought impossible.
Like organizing an ALS awareness movement for the entire country when you can barely move.
The trip to New York was taxing. It wore him out to the point that he had to cancel an invitation to throw out the first pitch at an Orioles game in Baltimore on July 10. Instead, he and his wife, Carolyn, came back to their home that overlooks the Heber Valley.
"I have to be careful that this cause does not consume me; I have to remember my wife," says Goldsmith, fiddling with the controls on his wheelchair. "I want to fight. I want to stay active, but ..."
The grim truth is that ALS only lets you do so much for so long. Gehrig was nicknamed the "Iron Horse" for never missing a start through 14 seasons and 2,130 games. Then ALS snapped the streak.
Gehrig was still a robust-looking athlete the day he addressed the Yankee Stadium crowd in 1939. The speech was heartwarming and inspiring, but in a way it did ALS — and ALS research — a disservice. The adoring crowds never saw the Iron Horse after the disease did a number on his muscles and killed him within 22 months.
Goldsmith gave them the "after" view, and there's no telling how much good it will do or how many millions it will help raise.
Not that it stops him from groaning about The Pitch.
"Oh, man," he sighs. "Somebody said I threw worse than a girl."
Lee Benson's column runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com.