[00:10.06]Gehrig continued to improve as a player.
[00:14.05]By 1924, pitchers for opposing teams were having bad dreams about Lou Gchrig and Babe Ruth.
[00:23.04]Ruth hit sixty home runs that year.
[00:26.36]Gchrig hit forty seven and won the American League's Most Valuable Player Award.
[00:32.86]Nobody was surprised when the Yankees won the World Series.
[00:37.85]Gehrig, however, almost did not play.
[00:41.56]His mother had to have an operation.
[00:44.93]He felt he should bc with her.
[00:47.60]Mrs Gehrig and the Yankees' manager urged him to play in the World Series.
[00:53.37]His mother recovered.
[00:55.67]More major threats to Gehrig's record of continuous games played took place in 1929.
[01:03.61]His back, legs and hands were injured.
[01:08.60]He was hit on the head by a throw one day as he tried to reach home plate.
[01:14.84]Another Yankee player said, "Every time hc played, it hurt him."
[01:20.54]Gchrig felt good in 1930.
[01:25.00]He said his secret was getting ten hours of sleep each night and drinking a large amount of water.
[01:31.64]Lou Gehrig now was becoming one of the greatest players in baseball history.
[01:37.99]He hit three home runs in the World Series of 1932.
[01:44.41]His batting average was five-twenty nine.
[01:48.36]The manager of an opposing team, the Chicago Cubs, said of Gehrig,
[01:53.82]"I did not think a player could be that good."
[01:57.63]In 1933, Gehrig married Eleanor Twitchell.
[02:02.93]Eleanor helped him take his place as one of baseball's most famous players.
[02:08.81]The younger Lou Gehrig had stayed away from strangers when he could.
[02:13.98]The married Lou Gehrig was much more friendly.
[02:17.90]As time went on, Gehrig played in game after game.
[02:22.89]He appeared not to have thought about his record number of continuous games played
[02:29.05]until a newspaper reporter talked to him about it.
[02:33.50]An accident during a special game played in Virginia almost broke the record.
[02:39.27]Gehrig was taken to a hospital after being hit in the head with a pitch.
[02:45.46]He played the next day, though.
[02:48.31]He just wore a bigger hat so people could not see his injury.
[02:54.03]Gehrig completed his 2,000th game on May 31st, 1938.
[03:01.11]That was almost two times as many continuous games as anyone ever had played before.
[03:09.65]Gehrig finished that season with a batting average of almost 300.
[03:15.11]He scored 115 runs.
[03:18.77]He batted in almost as many runs.
[03:22.42]But the Lou Gehrig of that year was not the Lou Gehrig of earlier years.
[03:28.54]He walked and ran like an old man.
[03:32.69]He had trouble with easy catches and throws.
[03:36.87]Yet his manager commented, "Everybody is asking what is wrong with Gehrig.
[03:43.58]I wish I had more players on this club doing as poorly as he is doing."
[03:48.49]Gehrig thought his problems were temporary.
[03:52.88]Then he fell several times the next winter while ice-skating with Eleanor.
[03:58.94]He had trouble holding onto things.
[04:02.10]And he failed to hit in three games as the next season opened.
[04:07.64]In May 1939, he finally told his manager he could not play.
[04:14.85]Lou Gehrig had played in 2,130 games without missing any that his team played.
[04:23.05]Gehrig observed his thirty-sixth birthday on June Nineteenth.
[04:28.70]That same day, doctors told him he had a deadly disease that attacks the muscles in the body.
[04:37.29]The disease is called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
[04:42.07]Today, it is known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
[04:45.94]Gehrig did not act like a dying man, though.
[04:50.25]He refused to act frightened or sad.
[04:53.62]On July 4th, 1939 more than 60,000 people went to Yankee Stadium to honor one of America's greatest baseball players.
[05:06.26]Gehrig told the crowd he still felt he was lucky.
[05:11.38](His words) echoed throughout the stadium.
[05:14.54]"I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
[05:19.63]I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you."
[05:29.27]Gehrig fought his sickness.
[05:32.38]But he became weaker and weaker.
[05:35.26]He died on June 2, 1941, He was thirty-seven years old.
[05:41.68]America mourned the loss of a great baseball hero |