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