At the 15 major-league ballparks where baseball is played today — including Cinergy Field — celebrities will re-enact the July4, 1939, farewell speech of “The Iron Horse,” Hall of Fame first baseman Lou Gehrig.

        The original “Sweet Lou” died less than two years later, June2, 1941, of a disease that later would be known as “Lou Gehrig's Disease.”

        Its medical name is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and there still is no cure.

        In Cincinnati, re-creating Gehrig's Yankee Stadium speech will be actor Luke Perry.

        Other celebrities involved are Brooke Shields at Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco, William Baldwin at The Ballpark at Arlington (Texas), Chi McBride at Chicago's Wrigley Field and James Gandolfini at Yankee Stadium.

        “The Speech,” which has survived the ages and come to be known as baseball's Gettysburg Address, begins with two famous sentences: “Fans, for the past two weeks, you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

        Most people are familiar with those words because they were immortalized in the 1942 movie Pride of the Yankees, starring Gary Cooper. This is the movie's 60th anniversary.

        Among the 62,000 fans at Yankee Stadium that day, by sheer serendipity, was Jim Walls, a 25-year timekeeper at American Toolworks, Pearl and Eggleston, Cincinnati. Although he is enshrined in the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame for his exploits in baseball and fast-pitch softball, Walls regards his personal witness of Gehrig's speech to be the greatest piece of sports history of his life.

        “The thing that struck me at the time, and sticks with me to this day, is there wasn't so much as a murmur when Lou got up to the microphone,” Walls said. “Usually, in a ballpark, you can hear somebody crumbling up a hot dog wrapper, fanning themselves with a scorecard, fidgeting in their seat, something. I didn't know 62,000 people could be so quiet. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen.”

        And it has remained that way for 63 years, three full generations. Walls, 88, of Fort Thomas, won't be at today's game. And he has never been back to Yankee Stadium. He knew he'd never be able to top what he saw that day.

        The celebrities are involved because of their friendship with actress Jenifer Estes, co-founder of an off-Broadway theater company.

        Estes, 40, was diagnosed with ALS five years ago. Along with her two sisters and a friend, Estes launched “Project ALS,” a foundation whose mission is to stamp out the disease. Project ALS Day was a result of a meeting between Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and NBC's Today star Katie Couric, who is a friend of Estes'.

        With the help of a variety of show-business celebrities — including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Melissa Etheridge and Sarah Jessica Parker — Project ALS has raised more than $11 million.

        In the book Iron Horse, author Ray Robinson relates that Cooper, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Pride of the Yankees, was called upon frequently during his tour of military installations in World War II to recite Gehrig's speech.

        For Walls, the trip to New York began semi-innocently. He suggested to a co-worker: “Hey, Lonnie, you know that car you just bought? How about we get a group together and go to the World's Fair?”

        No only did Walls want to attend the World's Fair, he also wanted to see Coney Island, the Statue of Liberty, Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden. He and his buddies, including Bill Sabin, stopped in Washington, D.C., and Gettysburg, Pa. Walls can't remember what kind of used car it was Key had purchased, just that it went through a case of oil on the 1,400-mile round trip.

        Walls didn't know the Yankees were in town until Earl Zimmer went uptown from their Eighth Street rooming house and stumbled into a pair of tickets halfway up the grandstand between third and home, an excellent view of not only Gehrig, but the remnants of baseball's greatest team, the 1927 Yankees (including Babe Ruth), there to pay homage.

        “It still sticks with me,” Walls said. “I can still see it. I can still hear the words.”

Braves 7, Reds 0 Reds box, runs Casey feels secure despite trade speculation Gehrig speech gets an encore Martinez won't pitch against Yanks NL roundup AL roundup Notes from Friday's games Richmond 5, Louisville 4

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