So we are up to episode 3 now! We would really like to thank the people at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park who provided Tim’s speech footage for this episode. If you haven’t been to the stadium it’s a beautiful place, especially if you’re a baseball fan. You can check them out online here.

For those of you interested in baseball and Lou Gehrig, you can find more information on him here. I know a lot of you reading this may not be interested in baseball at all so I won’t bore you with a lot of information about Gehrig’s many records. I think the single most impressive thing that Gehrig accomplished was his record of playing in 2,130 consecutive games from 1925-1939. That may or may not sound that impressive to you but think of it this way, for 14 years he played every single game, a record that would last for 56 years. He was called the “Iron Horse” because of his amazing durability. With the onset of ALS symptoms, Gehrig’s performance began to diminish and there was increasing pressure for him to be benched. Ultimately, it was Gehrig who took himself out of the lineup for the good of the team.

I think about how hard that must have been for Gehrig to give up something that he obviously loved so much and then I think about Tim and his music. For those who may not know, Tim is a great musician who is probably best known for his time spent with the Greensboro based band, Kudzu Wish. He currently is involved with a couple of music projects. One is a powerpop home recording project called the Popovers and the other is his current band, Decoration Ghost. He’s recently had to switch from playing bass to playing keyboard because of his symptoms. There will come a day when Tim will no longer be able to perform music but it is my hope that he will continue to find ways to create music by whatever means. Jason Becker is another musician who has been battling ALS for years and even though he is now completely paralyzed, he continues to find ways to compose new songs and recently released his newest album in 2008. You can find more info on his story here.

Now that more of Tim’s story is available online, we are looking for ways to spread the word. If you run a blog, work at a newspaper or any other media outlet then please contact us. We’d love to create further awareness about Tim’s story and ALS. If you are just someone checking out the videos weekly, tell your friends about it, share the videos on Facebook or any other social networking site. Anyone wishing to donate some of their time to help us out with our social networking efforts, you can contact us here. Creating awareness is key to funding research and eventually finding a cure for this terrible disease.

A huge thanks goes out to Brian Clarey and our friends at Yes! Weekly for their great article on Tim’s story. You can find it here.