Dianne E. Morford; Designed Symbol for Lou Gehrig’s Disease

Dianne Elise Morford, 48, the designer of the pinstripe ribbon and pin that became the national symbol in the fight against Lou Gehrig’s disease, the devastating neurological disorder named for the great Yankee first baseman, died June 26 of the disease in Salinas, Calif.

Born and raised in Wellesley, Mass., Morford learned about baseball as a young girl from another baseball great, her uncle Dominic DiMaggio. She graduated from Boston College and served in the Navy for five years as a weather forecaster in Bermuda and Norfolk, Va. She moved to the Monterey Bay area in the early 1980s. In 1990, she began experiencing what was later diagnosed as symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the formal name for Lou Gehrig’s disease.

In 1996, she and Laurel Pieper of New York, whose brother has ALS, designed the Navy pinstripe pin as an awareness symbol for the disease.