American Rhetoric: Movie Speech from Pride of the Yankees - Lou Gehrig's Farewell to Baseball Address at Yankee Stadium

American Rhetoric: Movie Speech

"The Pride of the Yankees" (1942)

Lou Gehrig Delivers Farewell to Baseball Address at Yankee Stadium

Gehrig: I have been walking on ball fields for 16 years, and I've never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. I have had the great honor to have played with these great veteran ballplayers on my left -- Murderers Row, our championship team of 1927.

I have had the further honor of living with and

playing with these men on my right

-- the Bronx Bombers,

the Yankees of today.

I have been given fame and undeserved praise by the boys up there behind the wire in the press box -- my friends, the sports writers. I have worked under the two greatest managers of all time, Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy.

I have a mother and father

who fought to give me health

and a solid background in my youth.

I have a wife, a companion for life,

who has shown me more courage than

I ever knew.

People all say that I've had a bad break.

But today --

today I consider myself the luckiest man

on the face of the earth.

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