A Rare Recording of Baseball Great Lou Gehrig, Including His "Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth" Speech

Henry Louis Gehrig (June 19, 1903 to June 2, 1941), born in New York City, was an American baseball player who played 17 seasons for the New York Yankees (19231939). Gehrig was renowned for his prowess as a hitter and for his durability, which earned him the nickname the "Iron Horse," and he is regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Gehrig was an All-Star seven consecutive times, a Triple Crown winner once, an American League Most Valuable Player twice and a member of six World Series championship teams. He had a career .340 batting average, hit 493 home runs, and had 1,995 RBIs. He is also one of 19 players to hit four home runs in a single game. In 1939, Gehrig was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and was the first MLB player to have his uniform number retired by a team, when his number 4 was retired by the Yankees. The following recording is a radio interview from August 1939 after Gehrig had retired from baseball due to his illness, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), an incurable neuromuscular illness which, since then, is often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease."