Lou Gehrig Day

 

Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day. July 4, 1939

Sometimes it's too easy and, frankly, too trite.

We raise the banners and wave the flags and print the T-shirts and make it all happen on social media with hashtags and whatnot.

You know it. You see it.

Well, today is Lou Gehrig Day and I'm all about it.

Unapologetically.

If I need to explain it, Gehrig was an otherworldly player who came to the Yankees in 1923 and formed a two-man tandem with Babe Ruth, especially when Lou became the first baseman for the Yankees on this day in 1925.

Oh, baseball is a team game but when you start with Ruth and Gehrig, you're in pretty good shape. But there were still seven others on the field day after day until Ruth left in 1934. 

By 1936, the leading man was a kid named Joe DiMaggio.

Lou, ever humble, just played the role of the guy in the shadows.

He let his numbers do the talking and what numbers they were.

How about 1927? Ruth got accolades by hitting 60 home runs. Gehrig -- the league's MVP -- only hit .373 with 52 doubles, 47 home runs, and 173 RBIs.

Did I mention how he played every day from June 1, 1925, and April 30, 1939? 

Oh, and who has ever said a bad word about Lou Gehrig? Literally, perhaps only the staunchest (and angriest) Cal Ripken fan might be the only one to speak ill of "The Iron Horse." Lou was renowned for being shy but always polite, and one of the truest gentlemen of the game. About the only negative thing I've ever read was that he was cheap.

I highly recommend reading Jonathan Eig's brilliant biography Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. It is a stunning work.

But you know the end of the story. We all do. It's been played out in movies, radio dramas, books, television, and of course, a movie.

The Pride of the Yankees.

Lou hit .295 with 29 home runs and 114 RBIs in 1938. By the standards he had set, the numbers were pedestrian. His performance was simply off and, worse, he felt a lack of energy. Of course, the Yankees won their third straight ring that year so that helped minimize the criticism on the 35-year-old.

But something was wrong and it became glaring in spring training in 1939. Hitting only .143 as the first month of the '39 season ended, Lou pulled manager Joe McCarthy aside in Detroit and said he was pulling himself from the lineup.

The streak was over. Not long after, the Mayo Clinic gave him the news: he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

ALS.

Now known colloquially as "Lou Gehrig's Disease."

It was fatal. Literally no hope.

Yes, you more than likely know the postscript. Gehrig never played again. On July 4, 1939, he spoke those words.

Yup. Those words.

He said he was "lucky."

"The luckiest man on the face of the earth."

Sadly, no full text, video, or audio exists. It was transcribed to the best of the ability of the scribes at Yankee Stadium that day. It remains, to me, an absolutely masterful speech from a man who wanted no part of speaking that day.

But he did, with a nudge from Yankees manager Joe McCarthy. 

"Fans, for the past two weeks, you've been reading about a bad break. Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 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 are 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."

He may have prepared slightly, working it through with his wife Eleanor but the truth is it was off-the-cuff.

Nearly 62,000 were in attendance. Most of them -- including the hard-boiled men of the press -- wept.

Gehrig stayed with the Yankees through the balance of 1939 as team captain and dugout presence. The Bombers won their fourth straight title that October.

He began 1940 with a new job, as a parole officer for the City of New York under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. 

With any public comments, he remained upbeat. "Don't think I am depressed or pessimistic about my condition at present," he wrote at one point. "I intend to hold on as long as possible and then if the inevitable comes, I will accept it philosophically and hope for the best. That's all we can do."

But ALS simply takes over.

Gehrig died 82 years ago today, on June 2, 1941.

The reason #LouGehrigDay exists is to continue to raise awareness about ALS. It exists to raise money for research. It exists to work to find a cure.

Lou Gehrig died 82 years ago and it simply feels like we're nowhere near finding an answer. Further, the ALS Association says, "ALS was identified in 1869 by French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot."

We've known about ALS for over 150 years and we're nowhere near a cure.

According to Target ALS,  global estimates of ALS range from 1.9 cases per 100,000 people to 6 per 100,000. To put that into perspective, there are roughly 6,000 new diagnoses per year.

Again, it's fatal. There is no known cure. Worse, again per Target ALS "Current data indicates that ALS is more common in white men between the ages of 60 – 79. However, anyone of any age can get ALS, and we haven’t yet identified all the risk factors."

Did I mention Lou Gehrig died 82 years ago and "We haven't yet identified all the risk factors?"

The Ice Bucket Challenge brought awareness but after the phenomenon died down, what happened? ALS disappeared from the conversation again.

More awareness is needed. More money is needed. More research is needed.

Let's end ALS.

And remember the good man that Lou Gehrig was. He was much more than a disease.