AMAZING GRACE

FOURTH OF JULY, 1939 - LOU GEHRIG APPRECIATION DAY, FAREWELL SPEECH (Harvey Frommer)

Sid Mercer, the Master of ceremonies, announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, Lou Gehrig has asked me to thank you all for him. He is too moved to speak."

"We want Lou! We want Lou!" the chant was a plea for Gehrig to speak.

Coaxed by manager Joe McCarthy, Gehrig wiped his eyes, blew his nose. On unsteady feet, the seven time All Star moved towards the microphone to speak the speech he had written the night before.

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a 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 I have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. "Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure I'm lucky. Who wouldn't have considered it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrows? 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 groundskeeper and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that's something. When you have a father and mother 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 had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for."

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 4, 2003 12:14 AM