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Remembering the Greatest Speech in Baseball History
4 July 2009
“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 this earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years and 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 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 may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.” – Lou Gehrig, July 4, 1939
Filed under sports
Steve Holtje’s Top 10
Week of December 27
I wanted to start running my best of 2009 lists this week. Instead, I’ve sadly spent the past two days writing a Vic Chesnutt obituary. So I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about him and his work; here are my favorite Chesnutt albums in order.
Also, Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses) is collecting donations at http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/vic to be given to Chesnutt’s family. Her heartfelt and highly personal tribute/reaction is well worth reading.
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Little (Texas Hotel, 1990)
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North Star Deserter (Constellation, 2007)
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At the Cut (Constellation, 2009)
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Skitter on Take-Off (Vapor, 2009)
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Is the Actor Happy? (Texas Hotel, 1995)
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Drunk (Texas Hotel, 1993)
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West of Rome (Texas Hotel, 1991)
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Silver Lake (New West, 2003)
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About to Choke (Capitol, 1996)
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The Salesman and Bernadette (Capricorn, 1998)
Comments
What a beautiful speech. Like you, I’m a Mets fan and don’t care much for the Yankees, but Gehrig was not only baseball’s ultimate ironman before Cal Ripken came along but more importantly pure class.
— Matthew Berlyant 2009-07-05 12:07 #
And he attended my alma mater. Interesting bit of trivia: while all of his other Columbia records have fallen, he still holds the Columbia record for strikeouts in a game by a pitcher (17).
— Steve Holtje 2009-07-05 15:23 #
That’s my alma mater, too, Steve. Well one of them anyway. I went there for grad school.
— Matthew Berlyant 2009-07-07 11:45 #
I still have a whole bunch of Columbia records. Heck, I must have at least a dozen by Dylan alone.
— Dan Holway 2009-07-10 00:21 #