Month: January 2025

1939: Lou Gehrig leaves Baseball

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did Lou Gehrig use language to convey strength and optimism in the face of tragedy?

CONTEXT

Henry Louis Gehrig (1903-1941) was born in New York City and played first base for 17 seasons for the New York Yankees baseball team. He received many awards, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and was the first player to have his uniform number retired by a team. Many consider him one of the best players of the game.

On May 2, 1939, he voluntarily took himself out of the game because an undiagnosed ailment was affecting his play. It was determined that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative neuromuscular disease often known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. On July 4, 1939, he delivered the speech from which this text is taken at Yankee Stadium. Gehrig lived less than two years after his diagnosis.

TEXT

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. When you look around, wouldn’t you consider it a privilege to associate yourself which such fine looking men as are standing in uniform in this ballpark today?

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.

INQUIRY

  1. What contrast did Gehrig establish in the first two sentences? How did that affect the tone of the speech?
  2. To whom did Gehrig address this speech? How do you know? Why do you think he chose them as his primary audience?
  3. Why did Gehrig choose to deliver the speech in Yankee Stadium?
  4. Gehrig used anaphora, the repetition of a phrase several times within a work. Identify the phrase he repeated. What was the effect of his repetition of this phrase?
  5. Gehrig mentioned several people in this speech–Rupert, Barrow, Huggins, and McCarthy. Research these individuals and determine their relationships to Gehrig. What is the effect of mentioning people by name in a speech?
  6. Investigate the rivalry between the New York Yankees and the New York Giants in the late 1930s. How did that rivalry influence Gehrig’s speech?
  7. Gehrig mentioned his family and their sacrifices. What is the role of family sacrifice for an athlete to achieve greatness?
  8. What is the tone of this speech? How do you know?
  9. In his last sentence, Gehrig set up a clear contrast. What was the contrast? In what ways was it ironic?
  10. The person who survived the longest on record with ALS was Steven Hawking, who lived 55 years after he was diagnosed with a slowly developing form of the disease, but the average survival rate is about 3-5 years. How might knowledge of a life-threatening disease affect your view of life?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lougehrigfarewelltobaseball.htm

1845: Douglass’s Narrative

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did Frederick Douglass convey the importance of escape for a fugitive slave?

CONTEXT

Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895) was born into slavery in Maryland. As a young boy he was sent to Baltimore to be a house servant, and with the assistance of his master’s wife he learned to read and write. He escaped from slavery in 1838, went to New York City, and soon changed his name to Frederick Douglass. He became an accomplished orator for the abolition movement; he was so accomplished that many doubted he could ever have been a slave. Thus he wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, from which this text is taken, describing his escape. During the Civil War he assisted in recruiting Black soldiers to the Union Army and actively supported freedmen after the War. He died in 1895.

TEXT

…The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were perpetually before me. It was life and death with me. But I remained firm, and, according to my resolution, on the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and succeeded in reaching New York without the slightest interruption of any kind. How I did so,—what means I adopted,—what direction I travelled, and by what mode of conveyance,—I must leave unexplained…

I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in a free State. I have never been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate. In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New York, I said I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions. This state of mind, however, very soon subsided; and I was again seized with a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness. I was yet liable to be taken back, and subjected to all the tortures of slavery… There I was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect stranger; without home and without friends, in the midst of thousands of my own brethren—children of a common Father, and yet I dared not to unfold to any one of them my sad condition. I was afraid to speak to any one for fear of speaking to the wrong one, and thereby falling into the hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose business it was to lie in wait for the panting fugitive, as the ferocious beasts of the forest lie in wait for their prey. The motto which I adopted when I started from slavery was this—“Trust no man!” I saw in every white man an enemy, and in almost every colored man cause for distrust. It was a most painful situation; and, to understand it, one must needs experience it, or imagine himself in similar circumstances. Let him be a fugitive slave in a strange land—a land given up to be the hunting-ground for slaveholders—whose inhabitants are legalized kidnappers—where he is every moment subjected to the terrible liability of being seized upon by his fellowmen, as the hideous crocodile seizes upon his prey!—I say, let him place himself in my situation—without home or friends—without money or credit—wanting shelter, and no one to give it—wanting bread, and no money to buy it,—and at the same time let him feel that he is pursued by merciless men-hunters, and in total darkness as to what to do, where to go, or where to stay,—perfectly helpless both as to the means of defence and means of escape,—in the midst of plenty, yet suffering the terrible gnawings of hunger,—in the midst of houses, yet having no home,—among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts, whose greediness to swallow up the trembling and half-famished fugitive is only equaled by that with which the monsters of the deep swallow up the helpless fish upon which they subsist,—I say, let him be placed in this most trying situation,—the situation in which I was placed,—then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with, the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave.

Thank Heaven, I remained but a short time in this distressed situation. I was relieved from it by the humane hand of Mr. David Ruggles, whose vigilance, kindness, and perseverance, I shall never forget. I am glad of an opportunity to express, as far as words can, the love and gratitude I bear him. Mr. Ruggles is now afflicted with blindness, and is himself in need of the same kind offices which he was once so forward in the performance of toward others. I had been in New York but a few days, when Mr. Ruggles sought me out, and very kindly took me to his boarding-house at the corner of Church and Lespenard Streets. Mr. Ruggles was then very deeply engaged in … attending to a number of other fugitive slaves, devising ways and means for their successful escape; and, though watched and hemmed in on almost every side, he seemed to be more than a match for his enemies...

INQUIRY

  1. In the first paragraph of this excerpt Douglass drew clear comparisons between slavery and freedom. What terms did he use? How does this affect the comparison?
  2. Why might he clearly have dated the day of his escape? Remember, many thought he was too literate to have ever been a slave.
  3. Why would he have refrained from listing the exact direction and people who helped him escape?
  4. Douglass used two images to convey his immediate feelings of freedom–that of a rescued mariner and that of someone rescued from a den of lions. What power do these images convey? What emotions do they call to mind? Do you see any Biblical references?
  5. Douglass’s written tone quickly changed. Analyze the change in tone, its purpose, and how he accomplished this.
  6. Douglass then went on to describe his distressed condition. He used a series of contrasts with very little punctuation, mainly dashes. What emotion did this convey? How?
  7. What was Mr. Ruggles’s role in New York? How do you know?
  8. What qualities of this written text suggest that Douglass would be a good speaker? Remember, he became a vocal advocate for abolition.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

https://gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm