My boyhood hero and my adult baseball hero has been and now is the great LOU GEHRIG.
As a youth I read the book "LOU GEHRIG, A QUIET HERO", by Author Frank Graham, and I saw the movie "Pride of the Yamlees".
My interest in Lou Gehrig became a burning desire to learn more and more about the "Iron Man of Baseball".
Over the years I have collected Lou Gehrig memorabillia and cherish my collection.
Henry Louis Gehrig was born in New York City on June 19,1903 and died on June 2, 1941 in Riverdale, New York. His playing height was 6' and weight was 200 lbs. He grew up the son of immigrant parents who could hardly make ends meet and after graduation from high school where he excelled in sports, he enrolled in Columbia University to study engineering.Instead of becoming an engineer as his devoted and hard working mother wanted, while at Columbia he was a success in football as a scholarship fullback. He went out for for the baseball team as a pitcher and first baseman and attracted the attention of sports fans and professional scouts.
His parents, Heinrich Gehrig and Christina Fack were not destined to become wealthy. His father was mostly out of work and not in good health, and his mother was his inspiration and his companion (at one time she traveled with the team and was the unofficial chef), and she was his best fan.
Lou married Eleanor Twitchel, a socialite from Chicago where he met her while playing there, and she became the love of his life and was with him at the end.
It was on July 4, 1939 at Yankee Stadium where Lou made his famous speech on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, when he said,"Some people will say I had a bad break but today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth". There are many other versions of that speech when Lou was forced to retire because of a then little known disease now called "Lou Gehrig Disease".
