Lou Gehrig Speech

I was in 8th grade when I became obsessed with Lou Gehrig.  It was a strange attraction, given that at the time I could have cared less about baseball.  In fact, it would be another 10 years before I started watching baseball as a hobby, and another 2 or 3 years to have that develop into a loving relationship in which I have to maintain regardless of wins and losses each season.

8th grade...such a wonderful grade to be in.  So much confusion, so much time spent worrying about the wrong things and wondering what life will be like.  It was also a time where television produced movies of the week about everything from kids being kidnapped to a man who was battling Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS - other wise known as Lou Gehrig's disease.  The movie touched me in such a way that I started researching this disease for a paper at school, learning more about Larrupin' Lou Gehrig. At one point I could have told you his entire stat history.  In a room with posters for New Kids on the Block's Donny Wahlberg and Tom Cruise (hey, it was the 80's), I also had a picture of Gehrig until I left home after high school.  I still have that picture within my pictures of family and friends.  And while I will adamantly tell you I do not like the Yankees, Lou (along with Joe DiMaggio) are some of my favorite players of yesteryear.  He was a man who loved what he did, loved those around him, and never seemed to get into trouble like his cohort Babe Ruth.  He was a man who suffered many hardships in health from an early start, always able to overcome and succeed.  He was a man who cherished his family, cherished his friends, and cherished his fans.  He considered his life and those in his life as nothing short of a blessing.  I don't think there will ever be another man like Lou Gehrig, both on and off the fields of life and baseball.

Lou Gehrig's 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!