July 4 was the 70th Anniversary of Lou Gehrig's Luckiest Man speech. After a cut short seventeen year, Hall of Fame worthy, career in baseball, Lou Gehrig fell ill with a disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Many called it a tough break, but Lou Gehrig, always the class act, responded with a very different response than everyone expected. In his fairwell speech, he proclaimed himself the luckiest man on the face of this Earth.
The following is the text of that great farewell 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."
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
MLB pays tribute to Gehrig - ESPN,
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