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Annual July 4th Essay: Let’s Recall Baseball’s Most Eloquent Moment, The Lou Gehrig “Luckiest Man” Speech, July 4, 1939

Gary Livacari

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My Annual July 4th Essay:

Let’s Recall Baseball’s Most Eloquent Moment:

The Lou Gehrig “Luckiest Man” Speech, July 4, 1939

(To our readers: For the past few years, I’ve been reposting my Fourth of July tribute to Lou Gehrig and his “Luckiest Man” speech, with the beautiful featured painting by Graig Kreindler.)
 
Amidst all the Fourth of July celebrations today, all baseball history fans (like us!) should take a few minutes to reflect upon the anniversary of one of the most memorable – yet saddest – days in baseball history. It occurred 83 years ago today on “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day,” at Yankee Stadium between games of a Yankees- Senators doubleheader: Lou Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man” Speech.
 
To honor the occasion, check out the beautiful painting above by Graig Kreindler.  Be sure to click on the image to see all the wonderful detail.

Lou Gehrig Never Known For His Eloquence.

Famously shy by nature, Lou was never known for his public speaking ability. A magnificent hitter? For sure. Yet in fewer than 300 words, the dying Gehrig somehow managed to deliver one of the most moving and memorable speeches in American culture. I call it the baseball equivalent (in its eloquence, not in historical value) to the Gettysburg Address. It was composed the night before by Lou with help from his wife, Eleanor.
Classic Lou Gehrig from the Brace collection
 
There were 61,808 fans in attendance that day, including New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Postmaster General James Farley, and teammates from the 1927 Yankees. There is no known intact film of Gehrig’s speech; only a small snippet of the newsreel footage. So in order to fully appreciate the impact of this beautiful oration, I thought it would be a good idea to post the entire text.
 
Try to envision the scene as an eerie silence descended upon Yankee Stadium; and Lou, crestfallen and with his head down, slowly stepped up to the microphone. Somehow, amidst all the emotion of the day, he was able to deliver one of the most eloquent and moving speeches in American history. By the time he was finished, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. There is no one definitive version of the speech, but the version below may be the closest in existence:
 
“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. 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 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 that 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.”
 
After Gehrig delivered the speech, the stunned crowd stood and applauded for almost two minutes. Lou was visibly shaken as he stepped away from the microphone and wiped tears away from his face with his handkerchief as Babe Ruth came over and hugged him. The New York Times called it “One of the most touching scenes ever witnessed on a ball field.” It was said that even hard-boiled reporters had to “swallow hard.”
 
Here’s a beautiful description of the speech written by Richard Sandomir found on the “Sports On Earth” website:
 
“No longer a magnificent ballplayer, he was a dying young man, grateful for his life, not complaining about his limited future. He gave them the essential Gehrig: no different than the decent man he had always been, but now faced with altered circumstances. He did not sound like a professional speaker. He lacked a baritone like Gary Cooper, the actor who played him in The Pride of the Yankees, which made Gehrig’s speech so much more effective. Gehrig simultaneously became a symbol of courage and the soul of the Yankees’ cold-as-steel empire. Had he died in 1971, not 1941, he would have been recalled for his statistics and humility. But by offering nothing but gratitude, for a life that would end two years later, days before his 38th birthday, he was canonized a sports saint.”
 
Very well said…
 
Gary Livacari 

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Photo Credits: Painting by Graig Kreindler; All others from Google search
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