The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth

[Neroon]

All around Major League baseball today, teams will be honoring something all too rare: the farewell of a baseball player whose integrity nobody has ever questioned. 70 years ago, Lou Gehrig gave his farewell speech to the game. To say he was a class act is to do the man an injustice, because he was a heckuva lot more than merely that. I'm not talking about his statistics in the game he played so well. Instead, I am referring to his humility and innocence, his inspiration. As a writer in the New York Times mused today,

"Those who were in Yankee Stadium on that melancholy afternoon remain deeply touched by Gehrig’s words. But many in the stands thought only that Gehrig’s long career with the New York Yankees had come to an end, not that his death was imminent. How many in that attentive audience of 60,000 suspected that Gehrig’s speech would be forever etched in the game’s history? "

So to give the man one more tribute, I reprint the entirety of his 277 word speech.

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career to associate with them for even one day?

Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert - also the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow - to have spent the next nine years with that wonderful little fellow Miller Huggins - then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology - the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy!

Sure, I'm lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift, that's something! When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that's something.

When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles against her own daughter, that's something. When you have a father and mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body, it's a blessing! When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that's the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I might have had a tough break - but I have an awful lot to live for!

Lou Gehrig - July 4, 1939

With brevity like the Gettysburg Address, these are humbling words.

You were unrepeatable, Lou.

 

[Mallory]

Lou Gehrig is one of America's treasures. He went out and did his job (and did it well) day in and day out for years. He entertained hundreds of thousands of people during a time when such diversions were a welcome relief from the Great Depression. Besides being a great sportsman, he was also humble, a characteristic that has sadly fallen by the side over the past 70 years.

You'll never be forgotten Lou.

 

[sidious618]

I love Lou. It's a great speech he gave.

 

[mimic]

My step-granddad's son has ALS. Horrible disease. The Phillies have always had several auctions that raise money for ALS research and my step-granddad makes a point of buying something, so he has a bat signed by Schilling, etc. No Gehrig items though.

 

[SmoothieX]

That speech makes me choke up every time. I always thought he was an interesting yet tragic figure, I read a good biography about him one time. Though the title escapes me right now.

 

[crookeddy]

Here is a question - would you take the amazing life he had, knowing it would be cut short by that terrible disease?

I don't know my own answer to that.