Jeff’s Uncle Honored At Phillies Lou Gehrig Day

It was an emotional day at the ballpark on Sunday, June 2nd as the Philadelphia Phillies hosted Lou Gehrig Day. Across Major League Baseball, this day is recognized on June 2nd to honor those who have lost their lives to or are currently battling ALS.

Lou Gehrig is, maybe without hesitation, the greatest first baseman of all time. He wore number four for the New York Yankees at a time when they were known at Murderers' Row, because of all the great hitters in that lineup.

Lou Gehrig played in New York from 1923 to 1939, he has a career batting average of .340 and ended his career with 493 homeruns. He also won two league Most Valuable Player awards.

Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with ALS (or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) which ultimately ended his playing career. He passed away from the disease in 1941, just shy of his 38th birthday. Every year on June 2nd, the anniversary of his death, Major League Baseball raises awareness for ALS across all of their ballparks.

Personally, ALS has devastated the Kurkjian family after my uncle, my dad's brother, Matt Kurkjian, was diagnosed back in 2021. He passed away in the fall of 2023.

My dad and I have a podcast, "Is This A Great Game, Or What?" and we actually did a live streamed show from the ballpark ON Lou Gehrig Day to spread awareness. You can watch that live stream here. You can also listen to our show wherever you get your podcasts or visit GreatGameOrWhat.com.

It was to the surprise of each and every one of us when the Philadelphia Phillies honored my uncle, Matt, on the field before the game. They asked my dad to represent his brother on the field as they read out a very kind note about Matt's incredible life.

To the team at the Philadelphia Phillies, specifically John Brazer and Michele DeVicaris, thank you for welcoming our family to the stadium and honor Matt Kurkjian. It was a very emotional day at the ballpark but a very good one without a doubt.

If you or someone you know is diagnosed with ALS, there are so many great organizations that can help patients and their families. Some focus more on research, some focus on home care, some on all of the above. ALS United Mid-Atlantic serves the Delaware Valley and beyond in helping those diagnosed and their families, reach out, they are waiting for your call.

We had a lot of fun at Spring Training in Clearwater, Florida in 2024. Lots of work was done but also lots of fun was had. Including a game we played on our own which was all about finding the best throwback Phillies jersey at the ballpark.

If you can guess the player's name of the last jersey on this list, you are an expert. You win. 

As you might imagine, this was not small task at all. We ended up looking all throughout the jersey to find the best ones and we have quite the collection. The fun of this is we are going to let you to guess if you can come up with the first names of each and every jersey we found.

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So what constitutes a throwback in our opinion? It's not about the style of the jersey, only the name on the back. So for example, there's one player below (who I can't name, you've got to guess) who played with the team as early as last year. But now, since he's not longer on the team, we consider his jersey a "throwback."

Let's see how many you can get. Good luck! The last one is the hardest.