Lou Gehrig
Henry Louis " Lou" Gehrig ( born June 19, 1903 in New York City, New York; † 2 June 1941 in Riverdale, New York ) was one of the most successful baseball player in history.
Childhood and early years
Gehrig was born as the son of German immigrant Heinrich Gehrig and Christina Fack in poor conditions. His father worked as a janitor, but was often unable to work because of epilepsy, so that the mother had to support the family. Since his parents stayed at a good education, Gehrig went first in 1921 with a football scholarship to Columbia University. At the time, football was still almost exclusively a student and student sport while though baseball had a well-established professional operation, but on the other hand, to educational institutions hardly took place. Even before his first semester he played, in breach of the then strict principles of amateur college athletics, first under a false name for a baseball team in Hartford, Connecticut. This was very dangerous because he had set in the case of uncovering his college sports career and thus his scholarship in jeopardy. So it came after a few games and Gehrig was banned for his first year of college.
In 1922, Gehrig returned to the football team at Columbia University and then played in the baseball team Columbia Nine. Here Gehrig was discovered by a scout and 1923 taken from the New York Yankees under contract.
Star with the New York Yankees
First, he played again a season for the team from Hartford, before he was appointed in 1925 to the team of the Yankees. He replaced former regulars at the First Base, Wally Pipp, as this ( so it's at least related) headache complained, and played from there over 13 years every regular game of his team, that meant 2,130 games in uninterrupted succession - a record, which was only broken by Cal Ripken Jr. 1995. In 1925, he lost the World Series with the Yankees, where he broke Babe Ruth's record by record together. The two fought hard battles for the most home runs in a season.
In 1927, finally the long awaited title win: the Yankees dominated their league at will and rolled over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the playoffs to the World Series; of 1927, the Yankees are considered the strongest team in the whole baseball history. Gehrig won the MVP award as the best player in the World Series.
1932 Gehrig became the first player in the American League, who managed to hit four homers in a game. Since Ruth was weaker gradually, Gehrig took Slowly his place in the team. There were also private difficulties with Ruth, and both spoke several years outside the field no longer speak to each other. In the same year the Yankees won the World Series anyway, Gehrig's second title. 1934 Gehrig won the Triple Crown.
After Ruth had ended his career, Gehrig was with Joe DiMaggio a new competitor within the team. The duo won with the Yankees 1936 World Series and dominated for the next few years the league. This is clarified in the four-year dynasty of the Yankees when they won the World Series in a row between 1936 and 1939 four times. Gehrig and DiMaggio led the league in home runs.
However, it was noted that Gehrig in the 1938er season was weak. A year later, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was with him (ALS), one in the U.S. since then also called " Lou Gehrig 's disease" (in German " Lou Gehrig's disease " ), diagnosed. This meant the end of his career. So he was no longer part of the Yankee team that played the World Series in 1939.
On July 4, 1939 Independence of the United States, he was adopted in a tearful ceremony at Yankee Stadium, where he also expressed the still legendary sentence: "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth" ( "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on Earth "). It is noteworthy that he knew at that point that his death was near. On this occasion, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig spoke again after eight years together.
In the film The Great throw embodies the actor Gary Cooper Gehrig and is doing it in his appearance very similar.
Time after exercise
Gehrig time after baseball was very short. His wife Eleanor was at his side when he succumbed to his illness at the age of 37 years on June 2, 1941. His death stirred the American public, even President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent flowers.