Lou Gehrig was one of the greatest to play baseball. He played for the Yankees and was forced to stop playing due to a career and life-threatnening condition. It was on this day (4 July), that he delivered an iconic speech
Lou Gehrig, the Iron Horse of baseball famed for his 2 130 consecutive-games-played streak, made one of the most memorable speeches in the annals of sports. Heartfelt and poignant, this man with less than two years to live shared his feelings to an enraptured audience that left tears rolling down the cheeks of all but a few.
It was on 4 July 1939, Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, when the longtime Yankee first baseman uttered the famous words at a home plate ceremony at Yankee Stadium: "For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
The next day’s New York Times wrote "the vast gathering, sitting in absolute silence for a longer period than perhaps any baseball crowd in history, heard Gehrig himself deliver as amazing a valedictory as ever came from a ball player."
Gehrig had been forced to retire as a player two weeks earlier due to his being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the disease that today bears his name. On this hot and muggy day, he was being showered with kind words and numerous gifts; one of which remained a source of inspiration to his dying days and can be seen today at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Lou Gehrig's speech:
"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this 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 just 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 six 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 with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so 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 may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for."
The Independence Day event, held between games of a double header against the visiting Washington Senators; saw 61 808 fans pack the bunting-draped ballpark. For over forty minutes, Gehrig was heralded by members of the 1927 Yankees (including Murderer’s Row leader Babe Ruth), New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Postmaster General James A. Farley.
Among the gifts Gehrig received this day were a silver service set from the Yankees front office; a fruit bowl and two candlesticks from the New York Giants; a silver pitcher from the Harry M. Stevens company, the stadium’s concessionaires; two silver platters from the Harry M. Stevens employees; a fishing rod and tackle from the Yankee Stadium employees and ushers; a silver, three-handled loving cup from the Yankees office staff; a ring from the jewelry firm Dieges & Clust; a scroll from the Old Timers Association of Denver; a scroll from Washington fans and a tobacco stand from the New York Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Arguably the most cherished item Gehrig was given was a trophy from his 1939 Yankees team-mates. Presented by Yankees manager Joe McCarthy, the 21 ½-inch-tall silver trophy with wood base features an eagle perched atop a baseball supported by six bats. On one side of the trophy were the names of all his current team-mates; the other side a poem written by New York Times sports columnist, John Kieran:
To LOU GEHRIG
We’ve been to the wars together;
We took our foes as they came:
And always you were the leader,
And ever you played the game.
Idol of cheering millions:
Records are yours by sheaves:
Iron of frame they hailed you,
Decked you with laurel leaves.
But higher than that we hold you,
We who have known you best;
Knowing the way you came through
Every human test.
Let this be a silent token
Of lasting friendship’s gleam
And all that we’ve left unspoken.
Your Pals of the Yankee Team.
Kieran would later write that longtime Yankees catcher, Bill Dickey, Gehrig’s roommate on the road, approached him about writing the poem. "You know how we feel about Lou,” Dickey said to Kieran. “Can you put it in words that will go on a silver baseball statue we’re giving him?"
Kieran did know how the Yankees players felt about Gehrig and tried to put it into words for them. The Underwood typewriter Kieran used to write the poem is part of the Museum’s permanent collection.
"Admittedly that’s but a feeble interpretation of what the Yankee players felt about Lou Gehrig," Kieran would later write. "But Bill Dickey, when it was handed to him, read it, looked up and said quietly, 'That’s okay. Thanks'."
Kieran not only knew Gehrig as a player but also as a neighbour in Riverdale, NY. He would visit Gehrig when he was housebound in the last stages of his illness.
According to Kieran, one day Gehrig, from his chair by an open window, pointed to the trophy from his team-mates and said, "You know, some time when I get – well, sometimes I have that handed to me – and I read it – and I believe it – and I feel pretty good."
Soon after Gehrig died at the age of 37 on 2 June 1941, Kieran would write, "That’s the best pay this observer ever received for anything he ever wrote."
It was reported that after Gehrig’s famed speech, he walked to the dugout carrying only one of the many gifts he had received, the trophy from his team-mates.
Kieran, who was honoured in 1973 by the Hall of Fame with the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for "meritorious contributions to baseball writing," was an honourary pallbearer at Gehrig’s funeral. Soon after Gehrig’s death, he was asked by Gehrig’s widow, Eleanor, to make the announcement to the newspapers.
On 7 December 1939, the BBWAA voted unanimously to suspend the waiting period and placed Gehrig in the Baseball Hall of Fame immediately "to commemorate the year in which he achieved his record." Besides his consecutive-games-played streak, which has since been surpassed by Cal Ripken Jr., Gehrig finished his 17-year career with 493 home runs and a .340 batting average.
The estate of Eleanor Gehrig, who passed away in 1984, donated the trophy with the Kieran poem to the Hall of Fame in 1985. Today, it can be viewed on the Museum’s second floor as part of Baseball’s Timeline, located at the bottom of Gehrig’s locker; along with the fruit bowl he received from the Giants, as part of an exhibit case dedicated to the Yankees of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The exhibit also includes a cap and jersey worn by Gehrig in 1939, as well as the glove and bronzed baseball shoe from Gehrig’s final game on 30 April 1939.
Despite not being diagnosed with ALS until June 1939, Gehrig began experiencing symptoms as early as midway through the 1938 season. Although his performance in the second half of the season was slightly better than in the first half, Gehrig reported physical changes at the midway point.
At the end of that season, he said, "I was tired mid-season. I don't know why, but I just couldn't get going again." Although his final 1938 statistics were above average (.295 batting average; 114 RBIs; 170 hits; .523 slugging percentage; 689 plate appearances with only 75 strikeouts and 29 home runs), boosted by a hot August; they were significantly down from his 1937 season, in which he batted .351 and slugged .643.
He stole his last two bases on 7 September 1938. He had his last extra-base hit, a home run, on 27 September 1938. In the 1938 World Series, he had 4 hits in 14 at-bats (.286 batting average), all singles
When the Yankees began their 1939 spring training in St. Petersburg, Florida, Gehrig clearly no longer possessed his once-formidable power. Even his base running was affected and, at one point, he collapsed at Al Lang Stadium; then the Yankees' spring training park.
By the end of spring training, he had not hit a home run. Throughout his career, Gehrig was considered an excellent base runner but as the 1939 season got under way, his co-ordination and speed had deteriorated significantly.
By the end of April, eight games into the season, Gehrig's statistics were the worst of his career, with one RBI and a .143 batting average. Fans and the press openly speculated on his abrupt decline. James Kahn, a reporter who wrote often about Gehrig, said in one article:
"I think there is something wrong with him. Physically wrong, I mean. I don't know what it is, but I am satisfied that it goes far beyond his ball-playing. I have seen ballplayers 'go' overnight, as Gehrig seems to have done. But they were simply washed up as ballplayers. It's something deeper than that in this case, though. I have watched him very closely and this is what I have seen: I have seen him time a ball perfectly, swing on it as hard as he can, meet it squarely – and drive a soft, looping fly over the infield. In other words, for some reason that I do not know, his old power isn't there ... He is meeting the ball, time after time, and it isn't going anywhere."
Gehrig was indeed meeting the ball, with only one strikeout in 28 at-bats. However, with Gehrig hitless in five of the eight games, McCarthy found himself resisting pressure from Yankee management to switch his slumping player to a part-time role.
Things came to a head when Gehrig struggled to make a routine put-out at first base. The pitcher, Johnny Murphy, had to wait for Gehrig to drag himself over to the bag so he could field the throw. Murphy said, "Nice play, Lou."
Gehrig's later assessment was very dismissive. "That was the simplest play you could ever make in baseball, and I knew then: There was something wrong with me."
On 30 April, Gehrig went hitless against the Washington Senators. He had just played his 2 130th consecutive major league game. On 2 May, the next game after a day off, Gehrig approached McCarthy before the game in Detroit against the Detroit Tigers and said, "I'm benching myself, Joe," telling the Yankees' skipper that he was doing so "for the good of the team".
McCarthy acquiesced, putting Ellsworth "Babe" Dahlgren in at first base and also said that whenever Gehrig felt he could play again; the position was his. Gehrig, as Yankee captain, himself took the line-up card out to the shocked umpires before the game; ending the 14-year streak.
Before the game began, the Briggs Stadium announcer told the fans, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time Lou Gehrig's name will not appear on the Yankee line-up in 2 130 consecutive games." The Tigers' fans gave Gehrig a standing ovation while he sat on the bench with tears in his eyes.
Coincidentally, among those attending the game was Wally Pipp, whom Gehrig had replaced at first base 2 130 games previously. A wire-service photograph of Gehrig reclining against the dugout steps with a stoic expression appeared the next day in the nation's newspapers. He stayed with the Yankees as team captain for the rest of the season but never played in a major-league game again.
As Gehrig's debilitation became steadily worse, his wife Eleanor called the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Her call was transferred to Charles William Mayo, who had been following Gehrig's career and his mysterious loss of strength. Mayo told Gehrig's wife to bring him to the clinic as soon as possible.
Gehrig flew alone to Rochester from Chicago, where the Yankees were playing at the time and arrived at the Mayo Clinic on 13 June 1939. After six days of extensive testing, doctors confirmed the diagnosis of ALS on 19 June; which was Gehrig's 36th birthday. The prognosis was grim: rapidly increasing paralysis, difficulty in swallowing and speaking and a life expectancy less than three years; although no impairment of mental functions would occur.
Gehrig's wife was told that the cause of the disease was unknown but that it was painless, not contagious and cruel; the motor function of the central nervous system is destroyed. The mind remains fully aware until the end.
Eleanor later wrote of this time: "The call came from Dr. Mayo and Dr. O'Leary, and it hit me amidships. 'Take your time and give me the works,' Lou had ordered them with a laugh when the testing began. And they took their time and gave him the works. At the outside, they told me on the telephone, he had two and a half years to live.
Gehrig often wrote letters to his wife, and one such note written shortly after the diagnosis said in part:
"The bad news is lateral sclerosis, in our language "creeping" paralysis. There isn't any cure ... there are very few of these cases. It is probably caused by some germ ... Never heard of transmitting it to mates ... There is a 50–50 chance of keeping me as I am. I may need a cane in 10 or 15 years. Playing is out of the question ..."
... and Paul [Dr. O'Leary, Mayo Clinic] suggests a coaching job or job in the office or writing. I made him honestly assure me that it will not affect me mentally. They seem to think I'll get along all right if I can reconcile myself to this condition, which I have done but only after they assured me there is no danger of transmission and that I will not become mentally unbalanced and thereby become a burden on your hands for life. I adore you, sweetheart."
Gehrig continued,
"... and Paul [Dr. O'Leary, Mayo Clinic] suggests a coaching job or job in the office or writing. I made him honestly assure me that it will not affect me mentally. They seem to think I'll get along all right if I can reconcile myself to this condition, which I have done but only after they assured me there is no danger of transmission and that I will not become mentally unbalanced and thereby become a burden on your hands for life. I adore you, sweetheart.[58] ... and Paul [Dr. O'Leary, Mayo Clinic] suggests a coaching job or job in the office or writing. I made him honestly assure me that it will not affect me mentally. They seem to think I'll get along all right if I can reconcile myself to this condition, which I have done but only after they assured me there is no danger of transmission and that I will not become mentally unbalanced and thereby become a burden on your hands for life. I adore you, sweetheart.[58]
Following Gehrig's diagnosis, he briefly rejoined the Yankees in Washington, D.C. As his train pulled into Union Station, he was greeted by a group of Boy Scouts happily waving and wishing him luck. Gehrig waved back, but he leaned forward to his companion, Rutherford "Rud" Rennie of the New York Herald Tribune and said, "They're wishing me luck—and I'm dying."
Possibility of CTE
Although Gehrig's symptoms were consistent with ALS and he didn't experience the wild mood swings and eruptions of uncontrolled violence that define chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE); an article in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology suggested the possibility that some ALS-related illnesses diagnosed in Gehrig and other athletes may have been CTE catalysed by repeated concussions and other brain trauma.
In 2012, Minnesota state representative, Phyllis Kahn, sought to change the law protecting the privacy of Gehrig's medical records, which are held by the Mayo Clinic in an effort to determine if a connection could exist between his illness and the concussion-related trauma that he had received during his career.
Gehrig played fullback on the football team at Columbia University and had a long history of concussions, including several incidents in which he lost consciousness. He played through these injuries.
Gehrig played prior to the advent of batting helmets. To diagnose CTE would require autopsy results; none was conducted on Gehrig before his remains were cremated following his open-casket wake. Multiple physicians have argued that examining records alone would be fruitless.
It's quite clear that Lou Gehrig was a beloved as a player and a person. It can be heartbreaking when someone like this goes through a very tough period and ultimately passes away from it.
It's always important to honour such people in a very special manner. He'll always be remembered in the baseball community.