The Luckiest Man on Earth

On July 4th, 1939, Lou Gehrig stood in front of a crowd of spectators at Yankee stadium and gave one of the most highly regarded speeches in sports history. Gehrig had recently been diagnosed with ALS, a disease later named after him, and was heading into the final two years of his life. Despite dismal circumstances, Gehrig addressed his audience with optimism: “for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet 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.”

This exordium is incredibly brief, but nevertheless takes home the point that Gehrig aimed to get across. He wished to be remembered for the extraordinary accomplishments of his 17-year career in the MLB rather than his illness, which was very much in the public eye at the time. For Gehrig, this speech was about securing his legacy as a man who was blessed with everything he needed to overcome the unlikely odds of becoming a professional athlete.

Gehrig’s speech contains less words than this post but in such a brief amount of time he concisely establishes his legacy with positivity and thankfulness. His exordium is split up into three parts: he references the media attention surrounding his diagnosis, states his disagreement with the narrative that he caught a “bad break,” and finishes by paying homage to his illustrious career and those who helped him along the way. Gehrig’s speech as a whole acted as a sort of exordium for his team’s performance; the Yankees outscored their two doubleheader opponents 13–4 that day and went on to win the 1939 World Series in October.