Lou Gehrig's Farewell: The Luckiest Man on Earth

Lou Gehrig stood at home plate in Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, his body already failing from the disease that would kill him, and told 61,808 fans he considered himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. The speech lasted just 277 words. The ovation lasted two full minutes. Babe Ruth, who had not spoken to Gehrig in years over a personal dispute, walked across the field and embraced him. Gehrig had played 2,130 consecutive games over fourteen seasons, a record so staggering it stood for 56 years until Cal Ripken Jr. broke it in 1995. The streak ended on May 2, 1939, when Gehrig removed himself from the lineup because he could no longer perform basic functions — fielding grounders, running the bases, swinging with power. Teammates had noticed the decline for months but said nothing. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic diagnosed Gehrig with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on June 19, 1939. The disease, which destroys motor neurons and causes progressive paralysis, was poorly understood at the time and carried a prognosis of two to five years. Gehrig received the diagnosis privately, and the Yankees organized the appreciation day between games of a holiday doubleheader against the Washington Senators. The speech was unrehearsed. Gehrig had not planned to speak at all, but the crowd s sustained cheering pulled him to the microphone. He thanked his teammates, his opponents, the groundskeepers, and his family. He mentioned his diagnosis only obliquely, calling it a "bad break." The modesty was characteristic of a man who had spent his entire career in Babe Ruth s shadow despite compiling statistics that ranked among the greatest in baseball history — a .340 lifetime average, 493 home runs, and 1,995 runs batted in. Gehrig died on June 2, 1941, at age 37. ALS became widely known as Lou Gehrig s disease, permanently linking one of baseball s finest players to one of medicine s cruelest diagnoses.