Derek Jeter helped Major League Baseball commemorate the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's luckiest man speech yesterday, reading the famous line from the icon's stirring words during a video tribute before the Yankees' game against the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Yankees also placed a wreath of red, white and blue flowers by Gehrig's plaque in Monument Park and made a $25,000 donation to Major League Baseball's "4 (diamond) ALS" initiative, an effort to raise awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis -- the disease that forced Gehrig out of baseball in 1939 and took his life two years later.

"It's one thing to me to have the game taken away from you before it should be, but, when you start talking about taking your life before it should, the way he handled it was incredible," said Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who has an uncle with ALS.

"I think any time you can pay tribute to this man I think you should do it because of just the legacy he left and the type of life that he lived."

ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, attacks nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord and robs from people who have it the ability to move and speak. The majority of patients die from respiratory failure within five years of the progress of symptoms, though there are exceptions.

All major league players, coaches and on-field personnel wore patches yesterday to honor Gehrig's legacy and a "4 (diamond) ALS" logo was displayed on first base in each ballpark as part of the awareness initiative.

Two months after Gehrig's last game, the Yankees retired the Iron Horse's No. 4 in between games of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators. He was the first player in all of sports to receive such an honor.

Manny Ramirez hit his first home run since his return from a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy. It was Ramirez's seventh of the season and 534th of his career, tying Jimmie Foxx for 16th on the all-time list. Up next is Mickey Mantle with 536.

Washington slugger Adam Dunn hit his 300th career homer to become the fifth player this season to reach that plateau, joining Houston's Lance Berkman and Ivan Rodriguez, and Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko of the Chicago White Sox.

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