01/16/2025
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis--Lou Gehrig's Disease
The disease was identified in 1869 by French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and became more widely known internationally on June 2, 1941, when it ended the career of one of baseball’s most beloved players, Lou Gehrig. For many years, ALS was commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Gehrig played with the New York Yankees for 17 years and received the moniker “The Iron Horse” due to his ability to play baseball despite suffering from a variety of injuries.
Gehrig was diagnosed with ALS on his 36th birthday during a visit with his wife Eleanor to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on June 19, 1939. Prior to his diagnosis, Gehrig noticed several of the disease’s symptoms while playing on the field, including a loss of strength, slipping, falling and loss of coordination.
Shortly after his diagnosis, Gehrig chose to retire from baseball. The Yankees designated July 4, 1939, “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day” at Yankee Stadium, and honored its former first baseman for his sportsman-like behavior and dedication to the game.
On that day, nearly 62,000 fans listened to Gehrig give his famous speech where he deemed himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
Here is his famous speech--
"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. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.
When you look around, wouldn’t you consider it a privilege to associate yourself with such fine-looking men as they’re standing in uniform in this ballpark today? 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 might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.
Thank you."
Gehrig would live less than two years after that afternoon, passing away at his home in the Bronx on June 2, 1941.
