I've got a shovel.

Buying indulgences ... I like it!

They really can't come up with one baseball lifer to give a special induction? Jack McKeon?

Every day in the United States, 15 people are diagnosed with ALS

Approximately 1500 people die each day in the United States due to cancer.

About 3,400 people are diagnosed with cancer each day

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States; one in every three deaths is from heart disease and stroke, equal to 2,200 deaths per day

4,500 children under the age of 5 die every day as a result of drinking contaminated water.

but by all means, let's commit copious sums of money to a disease that affects very few people in the name of a person who didn't even have it.

brilliant.

OK, weird but somewhat-related question: Lou Gehrig famously had great big legs and a great big butt.
However, I can't find any stats out there - are we talking Eric Heiden thighs, or what? Anybody know?

EDIT: I got curious when I recently saw those pictures of Gehrig in the Tarzan outfit again - his legs didn't look that big to me, but then I come from Swedish mountain people.

but by all means, let's commit copious sums of money to a disease that affects very few people in the name of a person who didn't even have it.

While all the diseases you listed worthy causes, they're also potentially lucrative ones, and have many billions of dollars in private research thrown at them every year. If you're going to make a charitable donation to medical research, it does make some sense to channel your money towards a disease that isn't likely to garner much interest from big pharma.

i get the argument that the players with taint would want to make up for their "slight" to the game

but why should the HOF create an entity to badger them into it and then rub it in those players' faces by asking them to work for the organization? wouldn't the players feel insulted? why can't the players just do that themselves if the only goal is to change perceptions?

Yeah it's totally stupid. Right in the same area as those Fay Vincent suggestions.

Just as an aside, my mum died of this stupid disease. She had a long term version of this which took about 6 years to go from some sort of minor problem with her fingers until the final end, where her heart and lungs stopped (which is the typical final cause). It was all very puzzling (at least to me, my folks knew more), because at first it was just a problem with her hand, then her arm, then both arms. The disease works its way backwards from the extremities until it hits the spinal column. Back in the 70s only about 4,000 people in the US had it, but probably because it wasnt diagnosed too well. Jacob Javits, a senator from NY had it and at least three memembers of the old Los Angeles Rams of the 1950s. It's very odd the way it hits randomly.

My dad took her all over the place including the Mayo clinic and some snake venom (literally) people in the south. It took a couple of years before they figured it out what she had, but my parents knew for several years that she had it.

I spent a little time studying it, and some people think it might have to do with prions, which are as far as I can understand short bits of proteins that inject themselves into the cells to reproduce. However I think only a couple of diseases actually work, or might work this way (I think Curu and Jakob Kruetzfelder disease).

I dont really worry about getting it, although possibly my later generations could. A clear genetic connection has not been found to my knowledge, although I think in the case of the fast acting version, there might be.

I was unclear about the comment above suggesting that Lou Gehrig did not die of this disease. Is there some story that I missed? Bear in mind there are at least a couple versions of this disease one that kills in 1-2 years and another that takes many years.

Lou Gehrig famously had great big legs and a great big butt.

That's why they called him Sir Hits-A-Lot. His anaconda don't want none unless you got runs, hon.

I was unclear about the comment above suggesting that Lou Gehrig did not die of this disease. Is there some story that I missed? Bear in mind there are at least a couple versions of this disease one that kills in 1-2 years and another that takes many years.

i was just being a little snarky. however, it is somewhat possible/likely that gehrig actually had CTEM (chronic traumatic encephalomyopathy) and not ALS.