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| Lou Gehrig Luckiest Man Speech |
On July 4, 1939, baseball legend Lou Gehrig was honored in Yankee Stadium. Gehrig hit .340, which is 17th all-time. Not a speed guy, Gehrig still gathered 103 stolen bases in his career and tripled at least 10 times in nine different seasons, once hitting 20.
In fact, Gehrig is 33rd all-time with 163 triples. The only player in history with at least 500 doubles, 150 triples and 475 home runs, other than Gehrig, is Stan Musial.
Gehrig had eight different 200-hit seasons while also drawing over 100 walks in a season 11 different times.
The two-time MVP led the AL in the following categories at least once in his illustrious career: Runs (four times), hits (once), doubles (twice), home runs (three times), RBI (five times), walks (three times), average (once), OBP (five times), slugging (twice), OPS (three times), OPS+ (three times), total bases (four times), times on base (six times) and several other measures.
Gehrig won seven AL pennants with the Yankees and six World Series titles. Gehrig played in 2,130 consecutive games before the disease ended his iconic streak. Gehrig’s simple, elegant language — and an iconic rendition of it by actor Gary Cooper in the film “Pride of the Yankees” — have helped the speech live on for decades.
To mark the 75th anniversary of the moment, Richard Sandomir looked at the history of the speech. KG: Lou Gehrig lived in the public eye but did not love the spotlight in the way his Yankees teammate Babe Ruth did. Do you think Gehrig was reluctant to deliver the speech that day?
KG: The iconic line from the speech is, “Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.” RS: Well, it’s how many people he thanked, and the language that he used. I mean, he remembers his mother-in-law and the groundskeepers in this speech. RS: [Gehrig] wasn’t known for making speeches. RS: It’s shorter. It thanks fewer people. You just wonder, do people remember the speech because they heard Cooper or because they’ve heard the few clips left of Gehrig from the newsreels? KG: It sounds like a lot of people heard this speech from Cooper himself.
So yeah, I think Cooper is the reason that the speech has lasted and endured as well. That has not endured — whether Raymond Massey or Daniel-Day Lewis or whoever’s played Lincoln, have any of them delivered a speech as memorably as Gary Cooper did of Gehrig’s speech?
Here's the full text of Gehrig's speech:
Sure, I'm lucky.
