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 seventeen 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 might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.
6 thoughts on “July 4, 1939: Lou Gehrig’s Speech”
Comments are closed.
Question for the guys who are or have been married in the past: did or does your mother in law take your side against her daughter’s?Report
My mom always, always, *ALWAYS* takes Maribou’s side.
Her mom tends to (not always, but tends to) take mine.Report
Actually, Jaybird’s mom takes my side on almost every little thing, but never any big things. My mom takes his side on all the big things, but leans toward my side on the small things.
Since it rarely happens that we discuss Big Things with our moms, I can see why he thinks it plays out the way it does.Report
My mother-in-law took my side about half the time.Report
Huh. Gets all… dusty when I read or hear that.
Weird how that happens.Report
By the way, another point for William Howard Taft. He advised Miller Huggins, who was one of his law students, to follow his dream and go into baseball instead.Report