"I am the luckiest man alive."

 

Those words, delivered 70 year ago on July 4, 1939 ended a magic error in Yankee baseball. Lou Gehrig, the Iron Horse, retired from baseball with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Gehrig, whose record for most consecutive games played stood for decades, had been diagnosed with ALS or what is commonly called "Lou Gehrig’s Disease." It steals the nerves from the body and eventually kills. No one in Yankee Stadium that day knew anything about the disease and no one believed that Gehrig would die just 2 years later at the age of 39.

It is Gehrig’s words that remain. How could a man who was having trouble walking from the dugout to first base lucky? He had a disease that killed him.

Yet, its a matter of perspective. I’ve known people who regale you with their sufferings and how they have been cheated by life or others. Their stories grow more grim with each re-telling. (And they are retold, again…and again…and  again…and again.)

Gehrig never dwelled on the pain he suffered. Life dealt him a cruel blow. But he never told the story, never let on about the pain, never showed that h e had cheated him. His legacy are the words echoing through the loudspeakers of Yankee Stadium.

"I am the luckiest man alive."

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