Farewell to Baseball ("The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth")

Summary

Lou Gehrig's farewell speech was delivered at Yankee Stadium on 4 July 1939, Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, between the games of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators. Two months earlier Gehrig, whose strength had been failing for a season, had taken himself out of the lineup in Detroit, ending his streak of 2,130 consecutive games. On 19 June, his thirty-sixth birthday, the Mayo Clinic diagnosed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive and incurable disease of the motor nerves. A crowd of 61,808 attended; members of the 1927 Yankees, including Babe Ruth, returned for the ceremony, and Gehrig received gifts from his teammates, the rival New York Giants, the stadium staff, and others. Manager Joe McCarthy and other speakers spoke before him. Gehrig at first seemed unable to speak, then came to the microphone without a script and talked for little more than two minutes. He opened by acknowledging the bad news the fans had been reading about and answering it with the claim that he was the luckiest man alive. He then counted his blessings one by one: seventeen years in baseball and the kindness of the fans; the teammates he had played beside; the owner Jacob Ruppert, the general manager Ed Barrow, his first manager Miller Huggins, and McCarthy; the gift from the Giants, a team he had always wanted to beat; the groundskeepers and other workers who had remembered him; his mother-in-law, his parents, who had worked hard to give him an education, and his wife, Eleanor, whom he called a tower of strength. He closed by granting that he had been dealt a bad break while insisting that he had a great deal to live for. Ruth embraced him at the end, and newsreel cameras captured parts of the speech. The Yankees retired his number 4 that day, the first number retired in the major leagues, and the 1942 film The Pride of the Yankees, with Gary Cooper, made the speech known to later generations, though it rearranged the order of its lines.

Plot or Argument

• The bad news and the claim of good fortune

  Gehrig addresses the fans, who had been reading for two weeks about his illness, and sets his own sense of being the luckiest man on earth against it.

• Seventeen years of baseball and its people

  He thanks the fans for their encouragement and praises his teammates, then names in turn Jacob Ruppert, Ed Barrow, Miller Huggins, and Joe McCarthy as men he was fortunate to know.

• Gifts from rivals and workers

  He counts it a blessing that the New York Giants, the crosstown rivals, sent a gift, and that the groundskeepers and other stadium workers remembered him.

• Family

  He thanks his mother-in-law, his parents for their sacrifices to give him an education and a strong body, and his wife for her courage and strength.

• Closing

  He concludes that though he has had a bad break he has an awful lot to live for, and the stadium answers with a long ovation.

Lessons

• Gratitude as an answer to bad news

  Gehrig does not describe his disease or its prognosis. Instead he answers what everyone knew with a long list of people to thank, so that the speech becomes an inventory of gifts rather than of losses. The structure shows gratitude as a deliberate choice about what to dwell on, not a denial of the facts.

  • Why does Gehrig mention the bad break at all, both at the beginning and at the end?
  • Which people does he thank, and in what order?
  • Is it possible to be grateful and grieving at the same time? What does Gehrig's speech suggest?

• Humility in the greatest player

  One of the most accomplished hitters in baseball history says nothing about his records. He counts it an honour to have played beside his teammates and thanks owners, managers, rivals, and groundskeepers alike. The speech shows humility as attention to others rather than self-deprecation.

  • Why might Gehrig leave out his 2,130 consecutive games and his statistics?
  • What is the effect of thanking a rival team and the stadium workers in the same breath as the owner?
  • How is humility different from thinking little of oneself?

• Brevity and plain words

  The speech lasted about two minutes and was not written out in full. Its power comes from short, ordinary sentences and a repeated pattern of naming a gift and pausing on it. It shows that an occasion of great feeling often calls for fewer words, not more.

  • How does the repeated sentence pattern in the middle of the speech build its effect?
  • Why do short speeches like this one and the Gettysburg Address last in memory?
  • When have you heard someone say the most by saying very little?

Context

Gehrig had been the steady centre of the Yankee lineup beside Babe Ruth and then Joe DiMaggio, nicknamed the Iron Horse for his durability. During 1938 and spring 1939 his play declined sharply. On 2 May 1939 he told McCarthy he would not play, ending the streak, and in June he went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where physicians diagnosed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The Yankees arranged the 4 July appreciation day soon afterwards.

Composition

Gehrig had thought about what to say and his wife is said to have helped him prepare, but he spoke without reading a text. No complete sound recording survives; newsreel footage preserves only parts. The standard wording has been reconstructed from newspaper reports and the surviving film, and published versions differ in details.

Reception

Newspapers across the country reported the speech, and it has been called baseball's Gettysburg Address. Gehrig was elected to the Hall of Fame by special vote that December. The film The Pride of the Yankees (1942) re-staged the speech with the luckiest-man line moved to the end. In the United States ALS has been known ever since as Lou Gehrig's disease, and the speech is regularly replayed and commemorated, including by Major League Baseball's Lou Gehrig Day, first held in 2021.

Comparisons

• on-his-blindness

  Milton, losing his sight in middle age, and Gehrig, losing his strength at thirty-six, both turn a bodily affliction into an occasion for patience and thanks rather than complaint.

• the-death-of-ivan-ilyich

  Tolstoy's dying judge discovers too late that his life was empty; Gehrig, facing a fatal diagnosis, publicly counts the people who made his life full.

• i-will-fight-no-more-forever

  Two short American farewells by men whose struggle has ended: Joseph speaks of the dead and freezing, Gehrig of the living who sustained him, and both are remembered for their plainness.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The opening move, in which Gehrig names the bad news everyone has read and immediately sets his own verdict of good fortune against it.
• The run of sentences in the middle that each name a person or group and close with the same short refrain of appreciation.
• The order of thanks, from fans and teammates through owner and managers, rivals and groundskeepers, to mother-in-law, parents, and wife.
• What Gehrig leaves out: his records, his streak, and any description of his disease.
• The closing sentence, which returns to the bad break of the opening and answers it again.

Key terms and names

Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day

The ceremony held by the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on 4 July 1939 between games of a doubleheader, at which Gehrig spoke.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

A progressive disease of the nerves that control muscles, diagnosed in Gehrig in June 1939 and since known in America by his name.

The streak

Gehrig's 2,130 consecutive games played from 1925 to 1939, ended when he benched himself in Detroit on 2 May 1939.

Joe McCarthy

The Yankees' manager from 1931, whom Gehrig names among the leaders he was fortunate to play for.

Miller Huggins

Gehrig's first Yankee manager, who died in 1929; Gehrig names him among those he was proud to have known.

Iron Horse

Gehrig's nickname for his durability and strength, which gives the setting of the speech its poignancy.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What had happened to Gehrig in the months before 4 July 1939?
2. Comprehension List the people and groups Gehrig thanks in the speech.
3. Interpretation Why does Gehrig thank a rival team and the groundskeepers in the same speech as the owner and the manager?
4. Interpretation How does the closing sentence answer the opening, and why does Gehrig return to the bad break at all?
5. Interpretation Why might Gehrig have chosen to say nothing about his own achievements on the field?
6. Big Question Can a person who is dying truly call himself lucky, and what would have to be true about life for that claim to be honest?
7. Big Question Is gratitude a feeling that comes to us or a habit we choose and practice?

Faith Connections

• 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (Scripture)

  Paul tells believers to give thanks in every thing. Gehrig's speech is a public example of thanks given not for his illness but in the midst of it.

• Philippians 4:11-13 (Scripture)

  Paul says he has learned to be content in whatever state he is in, whether abounding or in need. Gehrig, at the height of fame and at the start of a fatal illness, speaks as a man who has learned something similar.

• Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II (Great Conversation)

  Lady Philosophy reminds the imprisoned Boethius that Fortune has not taken his greatest goods: his wife, his father-in-law Symmachus, and his sons. Gehrig, struck by a worse turn of fortune, likewise counts his family and friends as the goods that remain.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Good fortune is measured by the people and gifts in a life rather than by its length or its ending. Gehrig has been blessed with loyal fans, great teammates and leaders, generous rivals, faithful workers, and a devoted family. Therefore, though he has been given a bad break, he is the luckiest man alive and has much to live for.

Rhetorical device: epistrophe. In the middle of the speech Gehrig names one blessing after another, the Giants' gift, the groundskeepers, his mother-in-law, his parents, his wife, and ends each sentence with the same brief refrain of appreciation, so that the list builds by repetition.

Debate: Resolved: that Gehrig's farewell speech is the finest short speech in American sport.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Gehrig's speech begins and ends with the bad break he had been given. Analyze how the list of thanks between those two points changes the meaning of the phrase by the time he returns to it.

Comparison with On His Blindness (Sonnet XIX): Compare Gehrig's farewell with Milton's sonnet on his blindness. How does each man respond to the loss of the bodily power on which his work depended, and what does each find that the loss cannot take away?

Medical Lens

Gehrig's illness gave amyotrophic lateral sclerosis its popular American name. The disease had been described by Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris in the 1860s and 1870s as a degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons, but in 1939 there was no treatment that altered its course, and the diagnosis, made at the Mayo Clinic, carried a prognosis of a few years. Gehrig's decline over 1938-1939, from a dominant hitter to a player struggling with routine plays, is one of the best-documented public presentations of the disease. The first drug shown to modestly extend survival, riluzole, was not approved in the United States until 1995. A 2010 neuropathology report raised the possibility that repeated head trauma in athletes can produce a motor neuron disease resembling ALS, prompting speculation about Gehrig, who had suffered concussions; this remains unproven and no autopsy findings are known. For a psychiatric reader, the speech is also a public record of how a man received a terminal diagnosis: it contains no denial of the facts, and it sets against them gratitude, relationships, and a sense of meaning, the resources that later clinicians would discuss under headings such as demoralization and dignity at the end of life.

• Opening

  Gehrig refers to the bad news the fans have been reading about and answers it with his claim of good fortune.

  Death Dying
• Family section

  He thanks his wife for strength and courage, an early public tribute to a caregiver of a patient with a progressive neurological disease.

  Disability Deformity
• Closing

  He concludes that despite a bad break he has much to live for.

  Death Dying

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Have each student write a two-minute speech of thanks naming six specific people in the order Gehrig used: those who watched, those who worked beside, those who led, rivals, those who served quietly, and family.

• Essay

  Watch the surviving newsreel footage and the re-staged version in The Pride of the Yankees, and write an essay on why the film moved the luckiest-man line to the end and what the change does to the speech.

Further Reading

• Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, Jonathan Eig

• Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, Ray Robinson

• My Luke and I, Eleanor Gehrig and Joseph Durso