Happy Birthday, Lou Gehrig! The record-setting baseball legend would have been 106 today. He anchored the Yankees’ “Bronx Bomber” teams of the 1920s and set the world record by playing in 2,130 consecutive games over 14 seasons.

His career was cut short when he was diagnosed with an incurable neurodegenerative disease that would later become known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.” In his goodbye speech at Yankee Stadium, he called himself “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

Read the full text of Lou’s speech here. And watch the video clip from Ken Burns’s “Baseball” mini-series, narrated by David McCullough.

Early Days

Henry Louis Gehrig was born on June 19, 1903, in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. He excelled both academically and athletically, and was a star player on the football and baseball teams at Columbia University, writes Living Legacies, Columbia’s alumni magazine.

Gehrig famously hit many home runs out of Columbia’s South Field, including one off the university library’s steps. In 1923, New York Yankee scout Paul Krichell convinced Gehrig to leave Columbia after his sophomore year and sign for the Yankees.

Notable Accomplishments

After spending two years bouncing between the Yankees and their minor league affiliate in Hartford, Gehrig joined the Yankees for good in 1925. On June 2, 1925, with starting first baseman Wally Pipp out with a head injury, Gehrig took over as first base. He would not relinquish his spot in the lineup for 14 seasons, playing in 2,130 consecutive games.

In 1927, he hit .373 with 47 homers and 175 RBIs, winning the MVP award and helping the ’27 Yankees—regarded as one of the greatest teams ever—to a World Series championship. He and Babe Ruth dominated the game, finishing 1–2 in home runs for five straight years and sometimes out-homering entire teams. Gehrig was often overshadowed by Ruth’s larger-than-life personality, but he didn’t mind: “It’s a pretty big shadow. It gives me lots of room to spread myself,” he said …

On May 2, 1939, feeling weak and sluggish, Gehrig removed himself from the lineup, recounts MLB.com. A month later, he would be diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable disease. He would never play again.

Gehrig finished his career with a .340 lifetime batting average, with 493 homers and 1,995 RBIs. Despite his shortened career, he ranks 25th all-time in homers, fifth in RBIs and third in slugging and OPS.

The Rest of the Story

On July 4, 1939, the Yankees held “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day,” in which he became the first player in the major leagues to have his number retired. Between games of a double-header, former teammates and dignitaries honored Gehrig with speeches and gifts.

Gehrig then addressed the crowd: “For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth … I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”

Gehrig remained with the team to carry out the lineup card for the remainder of the Yankees’ World Series-winning season. After the season, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame…

On June 2, 1941, Lou Gehrig died in his Bronx home. Flags were flown at half-staff in New York and ballparks across the country …

Happy Birthday to Lou! You’ll be remembered.

Happy Birthday, Paul McCartney! Mr. McCartney, who wrote the hit song “Birthday,” celebrates his 67th birthday today. Born in Liverpool, England in 1942, Mr. McCartney attained international acclaim as one of the Fab Four at the age of 21. Since those early days he has launched a second and a third music career, been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and premiered a classical magnum opus, “Ecce Cor Meum,” at the age 64.

Mr. McCartney is someone who can support the movement to create a world with less cancer and more birthdays. His mother, Mary McCartney died of breast cancer when he was just 14 years old. And Linda McCartney, his beloved wife of 30 years, died of the same disease. Here’s wishing him a Happy Birthday, and many more celebrations to come.

Watch the video below to hear him sing “Birthday” to the masses, and you’ll remember why he’s a sensation:

And speaking of musical giants, yesterday was the birthday of Igor Stravinsky, the Russian composer, painist, and conductor, widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music. He was raised in Saint Petersberg, and though he died in 1971 at the age of 89, his legacy lives on. Even Google paid tribute to him yesterday, with a Google Igor Stravinsky logo featured in browsers worldwide:

Happy Birthday to Mr. Stravinsky! May he always be remembered through music.

Lissa Coffey, a lifestyle and relationship expert at the Huffington Post, is taking the opportunity to tell people about the American Cancer Society’s movement for more birthdays. Lissa notes a survey recently released by the American Cancer Society which shows a strong link between health and attitudes about birthdays: People who say they are in excellent health are more likely to consider birthdays special and exciting events!

Since a big part of the American Cancer Society’s effort to create more birthdays is helping people stay well by making healthy choices in their daily lives, Lissa offers fun, healthy birthday tips to make your celebration one that will help create more birthdays for years to come. Thanks to Lissa for her support and creative ideas! Read her full post here, excerpts below:

More Birthdays: A Reason to Celebrate!

Recent survey results released by the American Cancer Society reinforce, once again, the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, and the findings are definitely cause for celebration. The online survey, which showed a strong link between health and attitudes about birthdays, revealed that people who say they are in excellent health are more likely to consider birthdays special and exciting events … These results are another reminder about the benefits of leading a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Not only will you look and feel great, but you’ll also be a brilliant birthday party guest …

A big part of the American Cancer Society’s effort to create more birthdays is helping people stay well by making healthy choices in their daily lives. Whether you’re planning a party for a child, an adult, or yourself, there are fun and creative ways to make your celebration one that will help create more birthdays for years to come.

Get Active:

To get your guests moving, pick an action-oriented theme for your birthday celebration — pool parties, soccer games, dance parties, or scavenger hunts are great fun for kids and grown-ups alike. There’s nothing like a little healthy competition!

Be Prepared:

If you’re hosting an outdoor party, have sunscreen (at least SPF 15) and extra hats on hand for guests who might have forgotten them. If you’re hosting your celebration indoors, find a smoke-free restaurant or venue or have it at your house and remind guests that cigarettes aren’t welcome.

Stay Food-Smart:

We know birthdays are about celebrating, but you can have your cake and stay healthy, too. There are plenty of healthy and delicious foods you can choose to share with your guests. Consider serving low-fat snacks like popcorn, pretzels, and baked chips and salsa and healthy meal options like grilled chicken or shrimp skewers. You can bake healthier, too, by making your birthday cake from scratch so you can control the ingredients and make smart substitutions like swapping butter for applesauce.

Give the gift of more birthdays:

Joining the movement to create a world with more birthdays isn’t limited to your own special celebration. By giving birthday gifts to friends and loved ones throughout the year with health and wellness in mind, you can help the people you care about look forward to more candles to light.

And if you’re planning to attend (not host) a party, Lissa has some creative, healthy gift ideas to help your host stay well too.

For cooks or want-to-be cooks:

Package flavored oils and vinegars in a large bowl made for salads.
Create a basket filled with healthy cooking utensils such as an apple corer, zester, lemon/lime juicer, garlic crusher, ginger, and nutmeg graters.
For the portion size conscious cook (and eater), consider giving a food scale, measuring cups, and/or attractive measuring spoons.

For foodies:

Create a basket with cheese, crackers, and fresh fruit, with perhaps a decorative cheese spreader.
Package dried fruits and nuts in a unique serving dish with pretty cocktail napkins.
Collect your favorite healthy recipes and give them in a recipe journal so they can also record their own.
Give a cooking class gift certificate.
Give a subscription to a favorite healthy cooking magazine.
Give a gift certificate to your favorite local healthy restaurant.

For those wanting to be more active:

Give a gift certificate to a local athletic shoe and apparel store.
Include a step counter/pedometer with an mp3 player.
Package a jump rope, exercise band, set of hand weights, and/or workout ball for an all around healthy workout.
Make coupons for babysitting so your friend can work out while you watch the kids.
Make workout buddy coupons and commit to get up three days a week to walk before work with your friend, if that’s what she wants to do.
Give a gift certificate for a tennis lesson, packaged with a water bottle and flashy colored tennis balls …

Lissa Coffey is a lifestyle and relationship expert and a frequent contributor to The Today Show and other national television shows. Lissa is the author of four books. Her most recent book, What’s Your Dosha, Baby? Discover the Vedic Way for Compatibility in Life and Love, is endorsed by her mentor, Dr. Deepak Chopra, who says, “Your heart will thank you for Lissa Coffey’s helpful and heartful vision.”

Happy Birthday to Harry Patch! Mr. Patch, the last British survivor of World War I, turns 111 today! Mr. Patch celebrated his birthday on Saturday with pipes, drums and a strawberry tea party in his care home in Somerset, England. Born in 1898, Mr. Patch, who never spoke about his experiences in the trenches until he turned 100, has become an international celebrity. He has been honored by the Belgians and the French, and now yearly in a telegram from the Queen. Read the full BBC article here and excerpts from his life story below:

At 18, [Harry Patch] was conscripted into the Army and sent to fight in the Battle of Passchendaele in Ypres, which claimed the lives of more than 70,000 soldiers…

Mr. Patch served in the trenches as a private from June to September 1917 when he was seriously injured by a shell explosion which killed three of his friends.

He has been married twice, first in 1919 in Hadley, Shropshire, to Ada which lasted for 60 years and then to Jean, who he married at the age of 81.

The war veteran had two sons with Ada, Dennis and Roy, both of whom he has outlived.

Along with his usual card from the Queen, the Belgian Ambassador was also among those sending their birthday wishes to Mr. Patch.

In 2008, on his 110th birthday, the Ambassador presented Mr. Patch with Belgium’s highest military accolade, the Knights of Leopold medal.

This year, Belgian Ambassador, Jean-Michel Veranneman de Watervliet, wrote to him: “I hope this year will be an equally joyous occasion as last year’s celebration.”

In 1999 Mr. Patch received France’s highest decoration – the Legion D’Honneur medal, awarded by the French government to 350 surviving WWI veterans who fought on the Western Front.

Happy Birthday to Mr. Patch from the American Cancer Society’s movement for more birthdays! May he live to see many more.

Blogger Heather B. Armstrong, or “Dooce,” has just given birth to a beautiful baby girl. Dooce, who recently wrote a post for us about her personal experiences with skin cancer, is now the proud mother of Marlo Iris Armstrong. She makes the announcement on her spunky, personal blog.

Congratulations to Dooce! Here’s to many more birthdays for her and for Marlo!

Today Danny Evans from parenting blog Dad Gone Mad writes about his brother-in-law Bruce’s struggle with cancer. Bruce was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma when he was still a newly-minted dad, the proud father of “an adorable little redhead with a big smile.” After being told that he had six months to live, Bruce defied the odds and lived for 10 years.

By throwing himself into the battle against cancer, Bruce achieved something remarkable. He taught his family about the power of refusing to accept defeat and he lived to see more birthdays — long enough to see his daughter through some of her most formative years and to help her on the path to adulthood. For Bruce every year he beat back cancer was a victory song, and that’s what the American Cancer Society’s movement for more birthdays is all about. Read Danny’s account here:

Bruce

I’d never met anyone named Bruce before. Bruce. He looked like a Bruce: tall guy, unmistakable smoker’s rasp to his voice, a commanding presence with a sarcastic sense of humor. I met him about 15 years ago, not long after I started dating Hot Wife. He was her stepdad’s oldest son, and about once a year he brought his family out west from Illinois to revel in the sunshine, play a little golf.

Often times when Hot Wife’s family would talk about Bruce, they’d get a sorrowful, resigned look in their eyes, as if they knew something awful was about to happen. His doctors told them that was the case. Bruce’s cancer (non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) was “aggressive.” Terminal certainly. And soon.

They gave him six months to live.

He lived for 10 years.

- – -

The nature of Bruce’s cancer was such that he became something of a guinea pig. Existing methods of treatment had been tried, sometimes retried. Some worked temporarily, some not at all, but none seemed to have the desired long-term effect. So Bruce voluntarily became the University of Wisconsin’s default test case. Experimental treatments of all sorts were injected into his veins and nodes. Many extended his life for indefinite periods of time, but most made him violently ill. I never personally witnessed the magnitude of his sickness, but the figments of my imagination are bad enough.

Bruce and his wife had a daughter, my niece: an adorable little redhead with a big smile. I wonder what it must have been like for him to be the father of such a precious child and hear from a physician that he only had six months left to be her daddy.

I remember seeing my friend Jimbo slowly succumb to cancer and watching the way he looked at his son. There was such desperation in his eyes. It’s not fair. It’s not fair when a man puts so much of himself into his child and then, just as that child is coming into his own, is taken.

- – -

I smile when I think of Bruce. I think of how proud he would be of his daughter, who has graduated from college and set out on a career. She comes to visit us now and again, and my children absolutely cannot leave her alone. She’s so loving with them, so patient. Bruce is alive in her spirit.

But my smile is also for what Bruce gave me.

Many of us spend our lives trying to live up to expectations set by others, as though our course has been preordained. We sometimes resign ourselves to the belief that we are at the whim of fate – that someone or something greater than us is in control. That certainly was true of me. But Bruce broke me of that mindset.

He taught me how to fight. His life says to me now that the will to fight and the determination to win are as much a determinant of our success as they are a reflection of our character.

Bruce showed me that when people set expectations for us – they gave him six months – our job is to prove them wrong. Our job is to dig in our heels, stand firm, say no, and take control. Without his lesson I may still be sitting in a cubicle, still wishing I had the balls to attack life, still thinking writing books was something done by people who had more than me.

Thanks, Bruce. You’re missed.

- – -

In the six years I’ve been writing this site, I’ve never written a post on a topic dictated by an advertiser. This is different. The American Cancer Society is different. I’ve given them my site for today because I want them to have exposure, to make money, to be the engine that drives toward a cure.

I would also like to see just how much this disease has impacted the Dad Gone Mad readership community. If you choose to leave a comment, give us the name(s) and relationship(s) of those you have lost to cancer. Let us remember them here.

Here at the Official Birthday blog we welcome the opportunity to celebrate more birthdays. It means more time with the people we love, more presents and more parties! So we were happy to see Queen Elizabeth celebrate her birthday for the second time this year in an official ceremony on Saturday, with her husband Prince Philip beside her and a parade of hundreds of soldiers before her.

Though the Queen technically turned 83 on April 21, the “Trooping the Colour” — a public ceremony held for the queen’s birthday — takes place in June, a tradition that dates back to 1748. The BBC has the story, and as usual YouTube has the video.

In other events, former president George H.W. Bush celebrated his 85 birthday on Friday by skydiving, a tandem jump from a height of 10,500 feet. Bush, who also parachuted on his 75 and 80 birthdays, says “Just because you’re an old guy, you don’t have to sit around drooling in the corner. Get out and do something. Get out and enjoy life.”

Bush said he thoroughly enjoyed the dive and hopes to do it again at 90.

And while we’re talking about a former commander-in-chief, Happy Birthday to the US Army! The nation’s oldest uniformed service, which was officially created on June 14, 1775 during the Revolutionary War, turned 234 on Sunday.

June 14 also marked Flag Day, the birthday of the official adoption of the US flag. In 1777 the Continental Congress “Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

Betsy Ross is credited with designing the original version and since then, there have been many variations on the flag. The current 50-star design, adopted in 1959 after Alaska and Hawaii became states, is the longest standing rendition.

President Obama has even declared this week national flag week and has mandated federal buildings keep the flag on display for the duration of it. So Happy 232 Birthday to our nation’s flag. Today and every day we salute you!

The American Cancer Society’s movement for more birthdays has picked up another supporter over at Fun-Kid-Birthday-Parties.com. The website has great ideas for birthday games and invitations, and they’re open to new ideas! Here’s what they have to say about us:

Fun More Birthdays Celebration

Help Build A World With Less Cancer And More Birthdays

Here’s a great way to celebrate your child’s birthday by making the American Cancer Society the official sponsor of your next birthday party.

You – Or Someone You Know

Most families have been effected by cancer one way or another. You may have someone in your family who has cancer – or you know someone with cancer.

Children with cancer is an even more difficult situation.

Your Official Birthday Sponsor

Fun Kid Birthday Parties joins the American Cancer Society by asking you to declare the American Cancer Society the Official Sponsor of your child’s birthday.

You – Or Someone You Know

When it comes to having birthdays, children and adults have a common bond – we all have birthdays.

And we all want to have as many birthdays as we can!

Send An E-Card

You can easily celebrate a birthday or celebrate someone who is a cancer survivor by sending an E-Card just to let them know you’re thinking of them. A great, life-saving idea.

Build A Birthday Page

Your family and friends can celebrate with you while saving lives. Build your Birthday Page today. You can customize it with your very own personal story – and you can build pages to honor family and friends. Another great, life-saving idea.

Facebook

Do you have a Facebook page?

You can easily install the More Birthdays application on your Facebook page to tell your friends network how to save lives. And you’ll also enjoy fun birthday tips on your profile.

Thanks to Fun-Kid-Birthday-Parties.com for all their support and encouragement! For more information on how you can help create a world with more birthdays and less cancer, visit morebirthdays.com.