BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…fast-forward a day to July 4, 1939:
In one of the most dramatically charged moments in sports history, an emotional Lou Gehrig says thank you on his Appreciation Day at Yankee Stadium. With a packed house looking on and his 1927 and 1939 teammates around him, the “Iron Man” spoke to the ages: “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 the earth.” Two months earlier, he pulled himself from the Yankees lineup, as an undiagnosed ailment had him in a season-long slump. The disease was later identified as ALS, to become known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”
The Independence Day event was held between games of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators, and it drew 61,808 fans to the stadium, which was draped in ceremonial bunting. Before speaking, Gehrig spent 40 minutes listening to tributes from all corners of his baseball life. He was showered with gifts and even received one from the cross-town rival New York Giants. Gehrig’s most cherished gift was a silver trophy crafted by the 1939 Yankees. It was the only memento he carried off the field with him.
The sight of such a weakened Gehrig was ironic. When he made his final appearance on April 30, 1939, it marked the end of a streak of 2,130 consecutive games played dating back to 1925. The record would stand until 1995 when it was broken by Cal Ripken Jr. The “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day’ spectacle was so iconic in American history that a motion picture was produced just three years later called “Pride of the Yankees,” starring Gary Cooper.
In December of 1939, the Baseball Writers Association of America voted unanimously to suspend the Hall of Fame’s five-year waiting period and inducted Gehrig immediately “to commemorate the year in which he achieved his record.” He was also the first player to have his number (No. 4) retired by a major league team. Gehrig passed away less than two years later, on June 2, 1941, at the age of 37.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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