Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl
Know your history!
On July 4, 1939, at Yankee Stadium, before a full house, Lou Gehrig stood in front of a microphone and announced he was “the luckiest man alive.†His somber teammates were lined up behind their captain and stellar first baseman. One of them, Tommy Henrich told me Gehrig had not planned to speak but changed his mind and broke the hearts of all who heard him. Henrich never forgot seeing Babe Ruth crying openly when he came over to hug Lou after the brief talk.
Just a few months earlier Gehrig had been forced to break his remarkable record of consecutive games when his powerful frame began to fail. His speech is still well known as the defining act of a remarkable baseball legend. Gehrig’s talk was emotional because everyone knew he was seriously ill—fans were told he had a form of “polio‖ and though his disease was then not as well understood as it is today, the public and his teammates knew he was not ever going to play again.
When he died a few years later, the disease– amyotrophic lateral sclerosis– was named and is still known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.†Ever since then, baseball and that debilitating disease have been closely linked.
