Lou Gehrig (1903 – 1941) was a highly successful baseball player whose career lasted from 1923 to 1939. He is strongly associated with the New York Yankees. He played for the team in his entire professional career. He was forced to retire due to suffering from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a motor neurone disease. He died of the disease two years later. In the United States and Canada the disease has been nicknamed Lou Gehrig’s as his case made the disease widely known beyond the medical circles.
Lou gave the most famous baseball speech of all time when he was forced to announce his retirement. Here are the two most memorable lines from his farewell address. “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 the Earth.”
God bless you, Lou!